Computer assisted nurses?
Posted on 11 January 2005
How do NHS nurses use Information Technology?
The new two-year research programme, which is backed by a £250,000 grant from the Department of Health, will involve surveying NHS trusts across the country to establish how a range of health care professionals use IT in delivering patient care.
The research will identify areas where there are innovative projects and four will be selected for closer study.
Programme manager Dr Dawn Dowding said: "We will select four locations to look at how they have introduced the technology and how it's impacting on decision-making and consultations."
The aim of the research will be to assess how the technologies have been introduced and whether trusts have provided sufficient information and training. It will track where nurses are using PRODIGY -- a decision support tool commonly used by general practitioners when prescribing -- or similar technologies.
Dr Dowding added: "Very little is known about what types of system are in place at local levels. None of them have been developed at a national level and so there may be considerable differences in the types of equipment that nurses use.
"We will identify which systems are the most efficient to introduce and work best in practice."
The programme, which started on January 1, is being run by a partnership led by the University of York's Department of Health Sciences, in collaboration with the Science and Technology Studies Unit at York. The other partners are the University of Southampton's School of Nursing and Midwifery and Loughborough University's Department of Information Science.
The York-led consortium beat off 17 rival bids to clinch the Department of Health contract for the project. Three researchers will be employed to carry out the project, two based in York and the third in Southampton.
Notes to editors:
- The University of York's Department of Health Sciences is a large multi-disciplinary department, offering a broad range of taught and research programmes in the health care field, including nursing. It aims to develop the role of scientific evidence in health and health care through high quality research, teaching and other forms of dissemination.