A new survey of district nurses by the QNI has revealed that 87% of participants experience poor connectivity when seeing patients because their digital technology is not fit for purpose.
Poor user experience described in the report appears to be because of design and function of the technology rather than computer literacy.
One participant said: ‘We have some technology, but it always seems to be the cheapest rather than assessing what we actually need and what will work for us. We have an agile system which is meant to work without internet, then upload when connected. But lots of the templates and plans we are meant to use don’t work properly on the agile system.’
To read more on this topic:
- Government's virtual ward plans 'less hospital at home and more home alone'
- Expansion of 111 service to improve patient access
- Personalising public health
Responses showed that digital technology is being used for a wide range of work and its use is embedded across community nursing practice.
However, only 11% of district nurses thought digital platforms captured work easily and fully.
‘Technology is brilliant. I think everything should be electronic but we are doing full assessments writing them by hand then writing them back in the office electronically which is doubling our work load,’ said another participant.
The lead author of the report, Professor Alison Leary MBE explained that the survey suggests there has been little improvement in either provision or functionality of community nursing technology in the past four years.
‘Scheduling platforms were not generally seen as enablers of efficiency of work. They were felt to enable ‘tick box care’ leaving insufficient time for nursing work,’ said Professor Leary.
Only 27% of district nurses found that the current platforms improved productivity.
Electronic systems were also felt to be impersonal acting as a barrier to interacting with patients with 703 out of the 1184 respondents not using remote monitoring.
Overall, participants want to use the technology provided to them if it was fit for purpose.
'There are so many areas we could use technology for like wound care, long term conditions, communication with others.'
Therefore, QNI chief executive Dr Crystal Oldman CBE has called upon all those involved in the design, development and deployment of new technology to work with nurses to help them delivery proper personalised care.
‘There is real potential for the benefits of digital technology to be realised should these and other challenges be addressed.’