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How Personal Digital Assistants Can Increase the Quality of Nursing Care Provided in the Hospital Setting

Jennifer Predhomme BScN
University of Windsor

Abstract

Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) are pocket-sized computers that are capable of accessing the Internet, sending and receiving data, and storing textbooks worth of information. These tools have the potential to help nurses increase the quality of care that they provide in the hospital setting. PDAs have been shown to increase evidence-based practice and decrease medication errors by making relevant information available right at the point-of-care. PDAs have also been shown to save nurses’ time by increasing the efficiency and accuracy of electronic patient charting, and by decreasing the time that it takes nurses to research medication information. The integration of PDAs into nursing practice pose individual, technical, and financial challenges, as well as patient confidentiality and infection control concerns. However, as nurses and organizations begin to recognize the potential for PDAs, and as more nursing-focused software and resources continue to be developed, PDAs truly have the potential to revolutionize the way that nurses provide and record care.

How Personal Digital Assistants Can Increase the Quality of Nursing Care Provided in the Hospital Setting

  Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) are small pocket-sized computers that have traditionally been used as personal organizers. As technology has advanced, these devices are now able to store, send and receive significant amounts of data as well as to access the Internet. This effectively creates a resource that would allow nurses to carry textbooks of information right in their pockets, to access the information they are seeking in seconds, and to do so right at the point-of-care. Surveys of nurses with PDAs revealed that popular resources included drug reference programs, medical math calculators, medical texts, and practice guidelines (Stroud, Erkel, & Smith, 2005).

  Although PDAs have become commonly used by physicians in the hospital setting (Garrity & El Emam, 2006), use by staff nurses continues to lag far behind (Thompson, 2005). This is unfortunate because PDAs could be useful in addressing many of the challenges that nurses face today, both as individual practitioners and as a joint profession. This article will explore how PDAs used as tools for practice can increase the quality of nursing care provided in the hospital setting. Furthermore, the challenges for integrating PDAs into nursing practice will be examined.

Increasing Evidence-Based Practice

  One of the most prominent goals of modern nursing is to create a comprehensive evidence-based body of knowledge and to use this knowledge to guide and provide rationale for the best possible nursing care. Although the effort to build this knowledge base is advancing, the struggle to incorporate this knowledge into everyday nursing has been identified (Dawson & Thomas, 1999). PDAs have the ability to make evidence-based information available to nurses when and where they need it. This potential is being recognized by some professional organizations such as the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario and the American College of Physicians, both of which have created PDA friendly versions of their practice guidelines. It is also being recognized by the Ontario Government in their initiative currently in progress to provide PDAs to 2000 Ontario nurses. This initiative is expected to result in improved patient outcomes through increased use of evidence-based practice (Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, 2008).

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