Objectives: The Health and Social Care professions (HSCPs) comprising of physiotherapy (PT), occupational therapy (OT), medical social work MSW), clinical nutrition (CN) and speech and language therapy (SLT) in St. James’s... [ view full abstract ]
Objectives: The Health and Social Care professions (HSCPs) comprising of physiotherapy (PT), occupational therapy (OT), medical social work MSW), clinical nutrition (CN) and speech and language therapy (SLT) in St. James’s Hospital are implementing electronic patient documentation. The aim of this project was to examine the non HSCP staff’s perspective on HSCP’s electronic documentation, to investigate their opinions, concerns and expectations in order to inform ongoing quality improvement initiatives. Ethical approval was not sought for this quality improvement work.
Methods
A survey was devised and administered by several mechanisms ( e- survey and paper copy) during the late autumn 2016. Reminders to complete the survey were sent through all hospital communication channels. The survey included demographic information, questions regarding frequency of accessing HSCP electronic notes, device access, training needs and opinions on electronic documentation processes. The results were then entered into Microsoft Excel for analyses and performance of simple descriptive statistics.
Results
Of the 139 respondents, 75% were nursing staff and 22% were medical staff. The majority of respondents reported accessing SCOPe records (89%) and reported finding the electronic system helpful, easy to access, relevant and felt it enhanced team communication. Positives highlighted included clear to read, important for discharge planning but with some negative comments regarding the dual system (electronic and paper records) adding additional work/time. Many non SCOPe staff highlighted a training need for most efficient accessing of electronic documentation (43%) and the need for additional hardware for sufficient access (52%) as issues. Actions to come from this survey include the need to communicate the findings from all surveys to the hospital, training resources for non SCOPe and SCOPe involvement in CAG and superuser groups.
The primary concern reported was that documentation was not readily accessed by medical and nursing staff (65% of respondents) A variety of reasons for this were suggested, including insufficient hardware and the presence of a dual system (paper and electronic).
Conclusion
The use of electronic documentation has been perceived positively by non HSCP staff. Concerns regarding non HSCP not accessing HSCP notes which were previously highlighted in surveys of HSCP staff appear to be unfounded. There is a need for further training to improve efficiency and more hardware to improve access.
