ICT-driven improvement of interprofessional collaboration between a rural clinic and nursing home: A mixed method

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xjep.2020.100380Get rights and content

Highlights

  • ICT systems shown to help interprofessional collaboration among rural medical staff.

  • Efficient information sharing leads to reduced anxiety for nursing home nurses.

  • Access to information overcomes rural issues of dispersed medical resources.

  • Older nurses and physicians may struggle with the use of new ICT systems.

Abstract

Background

Rural shortages of medical resources inhibit interprofessional collaboration, and nursing home patient care is difficult due to constant need of resources. We investigate the effectiveness of information computer technology (ICT) in facilitating collaboration between medical and care professionals.

Methods

A concurrent mixed method analyzed ICT's effects on collaboration between physicians and nursing home staff, using a two-month prospective cohort study. Staff used an ICT-based information-sharing system. Direct content analysis was used on the shared information. Additionally, one-on-one interviews with physicians and nurses were analyzed using thematic analysis.

Results

In total, 40 patients (average age 88) participated. Half had conditions shared using the ICT system. Information was shared 140 times, median response time was 80.5 min. Common contents related to terminal care (physicians) and vital signs (nursing home staff). Thematic analysis revealed four themes: seamless collaboration, security, time-saving, and accustomation.

Conclusion

ICT increases efficiency of interprofessional collaboration and security for nurses and care workers. To promote ICT, continual usage and facilitation of veteran nurses overcoming their technological difficulties is required.

Section snippets

Background

The health care of older people involves numerous complicated problems. The elderly often have a variety of medical issues, which may require them to go to multiple medical institutions regularly.1 However, attending multiple medical institutions may cause serious problems, such as polypharmacy and poor management of multimorbidity.2,3 Additionally, to care for these elderly people, many kinds of medical professionals must collaborate.4 It is clear that effective collaboration will contribute

Method

A concurrent mixed methods study was carried out over a two-month period to inquire about actual usage of ICT in rural interprofessional collaboration between physicians and nursing home staff. As a quantitative inquiry, patients’ conditions, including their background and contents, frequency, and results of medical assessments, were gathered from the database of the ICT and electronic medical records in the clinic. In addition, as a qualitative inquiry, one-on-one interviews were carried out

The relationship between patients’ demographic data and ICT usage

The total number of participating patients was 40. Their average age was 88, and the percentage of male participants was 30%. During the study, half of the patients had changes in their conditions, which were shared on the ICT system between nursing home staff and the clinic's physicians (these participants were defined as the ICT group). The other half did not experience changes to their condition during that time (defined as the non-ICT group). There were no statistical differences regarding

Discussion

This study indicates that interprofessional collaboration via ICT between a clinic and a nursing home, involving sharing patients' information, can be carried out effectively and without long delays. Shared contents were different for nurses and physicians, and a variety of medical information was shared. Through qualitative one-on-one interviews, it was found that ICT system application can drive seamless collaboration and makes both medical and care staff feel more at ease. However, there is

Conclusion

Use of ICT in interprofessional collaboration between clinic physicians and nurses at nursing homes can make their collaboration effective. Effective usage of ICT can lead to a sense of safety and security not only for nurses, but also for care workers. To improve and promote the use of ICT, there should be continual usage and facilitation of veteran nurses to overcome their difficulties in dealing with electronic devices.

Ethical consideration

This study was approved by the Unnan City Hospital Clinical Ethics Committee.

Funding

No funding.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Ryuichi Ohta: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data curation, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing, Visualization, Project administration. Yoshinori Ryu: Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing - review & editing, Project administration. Mikiya Sato: Writing - review & editing, Supervision. Tetsuhiro Maeno: Supervision.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interests.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all the participants that took part in this study.

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