Child to nurse communication in paediatric post-acute hospital care: evaluation of the VerbalCare tablet application

Abstract

VerbalCare is a mobile software platform for hospital patients and nursing staff to communicate in real-time. The purposes of this study were to (1) identify and evaluate icons for the VerbalCare tablet application and (2) examine use and satisfaction with this tablet application in a paediatric post-acute hospital. Hospital nursing staff were surveyed to identify the most common reasons children use the “nursing call bell”. Icons for the VerbalCare tablet application were developed to match the identified call bell requests and be understood by children. Through structured interview, three children provided feedback on the icons. Following staff training, the system was implemented for five patients (8–18 years). Data on frequency of use, types and timing of requests were collected via the internal software. Satisfaction surveys were completed at discharge. The VerbalCare application was used most frequently to communicate the need to use the bathroom (24%) and the need to get something (21%). Request frequency was consistent across morning, afternoon and evening and the tablet was used 40% of available days. These results indicate that children in a paediatric post-acute care hospital were able to use a tablet application for communicating with their nurse and reported satisfaction with the experience.Implications for RehabilitationThe VerbalCare tablet application was developed to allow patients to convey specific messages to nursing staff who are not in the patient’s room.Children of varying ages were able to use the VerbalCare tablet application to communicate varying messages to hospital nursing staff and were satisfied with its use.