Personal digital assistant with a barcode reader--a medical decision support system for nurses in home care.
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2010-03-08
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
INTRODUCTION Inappropriate medication among elderly people increases the risk of adverse drug drug interactions drug related falls and hospital admissions In order to prevent these effects it is necessary to obtain a profile of the patients medication A personal digital assistant PDA can be used as a medical decision support system MDSS to obtain a profile of the patients medication and to check for inappropriate drugs and drug combinations and to reduce medication errors AIM The aim of the present study was to evaluate nurses experiences of using a MDSS in a PDA with a barcode reader in order to obtain profiles of the patients medication regarding drug drug interactions therapeutic duplications and warnings for drugs unsuitable for elderly in home care METHODS The LIFe reader is a MDSS in a PDA with a barcode reader By scanning the drug packages in the patients home the LIFe reader obtained profiles of the patients medication and checked for drug drug interactions therapeutic duplications and warnings for drugs unsuitable for elderly people The LIFe reader also contained e g drug information and medical reference works Nurses n 15 used the LIFe reader for five weeks during their nursing home care practice assignment The nurses answered questionnaires about the content and functions of the LIFe reader before during and after the nursing home care practice assignment and were interviewed in focus groups Descriptive statistics were used and content analysis was applied for qualitative data RESULTS By using the LIFe reader the majority of the nurses found it easy to obtain profiles of the patients medication and check for drug drug interactions therapeutic duplications and warnings for drugs unsuitable for elderly people Most nurses regarded the LIFe reader to reduce drug related risks of falling and some thought it could reduce the drug related admissions to hospitals The scanning function was described as easy and time saving although not always possible to use The LIFe reader was regarded as a useful and user friendly MDSS but more content and functions were requested CONCLUSIONS We found that the LIFe reader has the potential to be a useful and user friendly MDSS for nurses in home care when obtaining profiles of the patients medication regarding drug drug interactions therapeutic duplications and warnings for drugs unsuitable for elderly A regular scanning of the patients drugs in their home might support nurses and general practitioners GPs in reducing the inappropriate use of drugs If the LIFe reader should be used in a larger scale among nurses more content and functions are necessary
Description
Keywords
Senior, Facility-based health worker, Access to information or data, Quality of care, Unintentional injury, Falls, Preventive, Chronic care, Electronic decision support, Disease management, Decision support algorithm