The effect of medical material management system app on nursing workload and stress

Yi-Tsao Chen,Yi-Cheng Chiu,Meng-Lan Teng,Pei-Hung Liao

doi:10.1186/s12912-022-00806-4

Yi-Tsao Chen, Yi-Cheng Chiu + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-022-00806-4

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Abstract

AimsTo develop a clinical medical material management App for nurses, in order to reduce their workload and improve the efficacy of medical material management.DesignThe single-group pre- and post-test experimental design was adopted.MethodsThe subjects were nurses in the intensive care units of a regional hospital in Hsinchu City enrolled by purposive sampling. Single-group pre-tests and post-tests were conducted. The research period was from November 2019 to March 2020. The workload, stress, and information acceptance of 57 nurses before and after the intervention of the Medical Equipment App were collected. The research tools included a structured questionnaire, which includes open questions that cover the aspects of workload, stress, and information acceptance intention of nurses, as well as a demographic questionnaire, which collects the basic personal data, including gender, age, years of service, educational level, nursing ability level, use ability of IT products, and unit type. The results were analyzed and compared using SPSS, APP Inventor, and data mining modeling to determine the effects of the App.ResultsAfter employing the Shift Check App, the average workload of nurses was effectively reduced, in particular, the workload reduction of the N1 level nursing ability was greater than that of N2. In addition to satisfaction, the scores of information acceptance intention in all aspects, including behavioral intention, technology use intention, and contributing factors, all increased.ConclusionThe use of information technology products to assist medical material management in clinical practice has a significant effect on the load reduction of nurses and improvement of satisfaction.Clinical relevanceThe App developed in this study can improve nurses’ work satisfaction, quality of care and workload reduction.

Highlights

Nurses’ job duties include direct and indirect patient care, and they work under high work stress and heavy workload
The use of information technology products to assist medical material management in clinical practice has a significant effect on the load reduction of nurses and improvement of satisfaction
Clinical relevance: The App developed in this study can improve nurses’ work satisfaction, quality of care and workload reduction

Summary

Introduction

Nurses’ job duties include direct and indirect patient care, and they work under high work stress and heavy workload. Nurses work in environments with heavy task loads, complicated interpersonal relationships, and changeable patient conditions; they have to manage medical materials and other materials needed for medical care. Medical supplies routine count is an important pre-work in nursing activities. If the team leader of the shift is unable to locate some materials, he/she needs to inquire the nurses of the previous shift about the location of the materials. The routine count of medical supplies generally takes about 15 min for each shift, which delays the shift handover time [3]. The purpose of this study was to develop an App suitable for nurses to manage medical equipment and materials, in order to reduce the nursing workloads and the shift handover

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Discussion

Conclusion