Impact of a nursing information system on practice patterns in Taiwan.
The purpose of this study was to measure changes in nursing practice patterns between the beginning stage and a later phase of implementing the nursing information systems. The study was a two-stage data comparison analysis. The data were collected during the first 2 weeks and 1 year after installing the nursing information system. Nursing activities were checked from a list with 83 items. Data were collected by a work sampling strategy during two 2-week periods in November 2004 and November 2005. For both stages, nurses spent about 20% of their time on direct care, 25% on indirect care, 9% on unit-related activities, 30% on documentation, and 15% on personal time. After 1 year of using the nursing information system, nurses spent more time on documentation but less on indirect care and unit-related activities. When unit patient census was high, nurses spent more time on direct care. Issues regarding evaluating the impact of information systems on practice patterns were explored.
Lee
Ting-Ting
TT
National Taipei College of Nursing, Taiwan. tingting@ntcn.edu.tw
Mills
Mary Etta
ME
Lu
Ming-Huei
MH
D003625:Data Collection; D007256:Information Systems; D009729:Nursing; D009737:Nursing Records; D013624:Taiwan