title: Inter-professional delirium education and care: a qualitative feasibility study of implementing a delirium Smartphone application.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Delirium is a common medical condition with a high prevalence in hospital settings. Effective delirium management requires a multi-component intervention, including the use of Interprofessional teams and evidence-based interventions at the point of care. One vehicle for increasing access of delirium practice tools at the point of care is E-health. There has been a paucity of studies describing the implementation of delirium related clinical application. The purpose of this current study is to acquire users' perceptions of the utility, feasibility and effectiveness of a smartphone application for delirium care in a general surgery unit. In addition, the authors aimed to elucidate the potential challenges with implementing this application.
  
  
  METHODS
  This quantitative study was conducted between January 2015 and June 2015 at the University Health Network, Toronto General Hospital site. Participants met inclusion criteria if they were clinical staff on the General Surgery Unit at the Toronto General Hospital site and had experience caring for patients with delirium. At the conclusion of the 4 weeks after the implementation of the intervention, participants were invited by email to participate in a focus group to discuss their perspectives related to using the delirium application
  
  
  RESULTS
  Our findings identified several themes related to the implementation and use of this smartphone application in an acute care clinical setting. These themes will provide clinicians preparing to use a smartphone application to support delirium care with an implementation framework.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study is one of the first to demonstrate the potential utility of a smartphone application for delirium inter-professional education. While this technology does appeal to healthcare professionals, it is important to note potential implementation challenges. Our findings provide insights into these potential barriers and can be used to assist healthcare professionals considering the development and use of an inter-professional clinical care application in their setting.
authors.affiliation: Biomedical Global Institute of Healthcare Research and Technology (BIGHEART), National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore. melvynzhangweibin@gmail.com.|Institute of Mental Health, 10 Buangkok Green Medical Park, Singapore, Singapore. melvynzhangweibin@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Melvyn
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Kathleen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Bingham
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Karin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kantarovich
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Jennifer
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Laidlaw
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Urbach
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Sanjeev
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sockalingam
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
authors.forename: Roger
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ho
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003693:Delirium; D004496:Education, Continuing / Q000379:methods*; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D006801:Humans; D033183:Interdisciplinary Communication; D063731:Mobile Applications; D036301:Qualitative Research; D000068997:Smartphone
keywords: Delirium; E-health; Education; M-health; Smartphone applications