Abstract
BackgroundThe work of registered nurses in home health care is complicated and extensive, and information technology (IT) is used in everyday activities. Coordination between care and resource efficiency is important. There is a wealth of information that supports the notion of sustainable development, but what sustainable development means from the perspective of the registered nurse in home health care when using IT is limited. The term “sustainable development” is not clearly defined and is poorly researched in nursing. Sustainable development in this study includes the ecological, economic, social, technical and ethical dimensions. The aim of this study was to describe registered nurses’ experience of IT use in home health care through a sustainable development model.MethodsThis study was conducted using ten semi-structured lifeworld interviews with registered nurses. The method employed was a qualitative content analysis with a deductive approach. The deductive approach consisted of a model of sustainable development.ResultsAnalysis of the interviews and the model of sustainable development provided categories: using IT from an ecological dimension, the registered nurses experienced reduced consumption and damage to the environment; using IT in the economical dimension, saving of time and resources was experienced; the use of IT affected social aspects such as the work environment and patient safety, and positive consequences, such as accessibility, were also mentioned; using IT from a technical dimension was characterized by the nurse’s attitude towards it – the registered nurses felt it improved the quality of care and gave users an overview of the organization; and from an ethical dimension, the registered nurses expressed the need for IT to be adaptable to the patient’s well-being and indicated that more awareness of risks in the care meeting may be needed.ConclusionThe findings are discussed based on the synergies and conflicts that arise between the different dimensions of sustainable development. IT intertwines and overlaps with, and within, the environment, economy, society, technology and ethics. Registered nurses in home health care want to conduct good and safe care, while using IT could benefit patients.
Highlights
The work of registered nurses in home health care is complicated and extensive, and information technology (IT) is used in everyday activities
Registered Nurse (RN) have the responsibility to provide health care (HHC) for patients, but the work is sometimes complicated by organisational obstacles and a lack of human and financial resources, which have an impact on the work of the RN and workload [3]
The deductive approach consisted of a model of sustainable development consisting of five dimensions, i.e., ecological, social, economic, technical and ethical dimensions, that overlap and intertwine with and within one another [13,14,15,16,17]
Summary
The work of registered nurses in home health care is complicated and extensive, and information technology (IT) is used in everyday activities. The work of registered nurses (RNs) in home health care (HHC) is complicated and extensive, and it places high demands on their skills [1, 2]. The everyday activities of nurses include the use of IT (Information Technology), in assessing health for example, as well as giving treatment, conducting checkups, handling pharmaceuticals and documenting care tasks [4]. Using their skills implies that they employ all their senses in nursing assessments [5] and are prepared to use their intuition and abilities [1, 6, 7]. There is a wealth of information that supports the notion of sustainable development, but there is little evidence of sustainable models of care for older people and of collaboration in their application
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