title: Point of care use of a personal digital assistant for patient consultation management: experience of an intravenous resource nurse team in a major Canadian teaching hospital.
abstract: The development and integration of a personal digital assistant (PDA)-based point-of-care database into an intravenous resource nurse (IVRN) consultation service for the purposes of consultation management and service characterization are described. The IVRN team provides a consultation service 7 days a week in this 1000-bed tertiary adult care teaching hospital. No simple, reliable method for documenting IVRN patient care activity and facilitating IVRN-initiated patient follow-up evaluation was available. Implementation of a PDA database with exportability of data to statistical analysis software was undertaken in July 2001. A Palm IIIXE PDA was purchased and a three-table, 13-field database was developed using HanDBase software. During the 7-month period of data collection, the IVRN team recorded 4868 consultations for 40 patient care areas. Full analysis of service characteristics was conducted using SPSS 10.0 software. Team members adopted the new technology with few problems, and the authors now can efficiently track and analyze the services provided by their IVRN team.
authors.affiliation: Pharmaceutical Sciences Clinical Service Unit, Vancouver General Hospital and Health Sciences Centre, 855 West 12th Avenue, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
authors.forename: Laine
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bosma
authors.forename: Robert M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Balen
authors.forename: Erin
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Davidson
authors.forename: Peter J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Jewesson
mesh_terms: D001955:British Columbia; D034201:Computers, Handheld / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006746:Hospital Bed Capacity, 500 and over; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching; D006801:Humans; D007263:Infusions, Parenteral / Q000451:nursing*; D009720:Nurse Clinicians / Q000458:organization & administration*; D015403:Nursing Evaluation Research / Q000379:methods; D010348:Patient Care Team / Q000458:organization & administration; D019095:Point-of-Care Systems / Q000458:organization & administration*; D015397:Program Evaluation; D012017:Referral and Consultation / Q000458:organization & administration*; D012984:Software; D018511:Systems Integration