Kuopio University Hospital introduces several different application features at once

Kuopio University Hospital introduced the point-of-care mobile documentation app developed by Medanets. With this wireless app, nurses can browse and document patient data immediately while with the patient, leaving more time to monitor the patient’s condition.

The point-of-care mobile app, functioning via smartphone, was piloted at the Kuopio University Hospital in 2017 and following positive feedback from the user community it will be introduced across the University Hospital. The Kuopio University Hospital ended up shifting to mobile patient data browsing and documenting in order to streamline the work flow and improve both patient safety and care quality.

Earlier, the values measured from the patient at the Kuopio University Hospital, as well as other patient data, were first written by nurses on paper and later, whenever time was left from other work, on the computer in the office. Sometimes the process also involved queueing to access the computer or having to open it. Patient data was reviewed at the nurses’ station as well. To a situation like this, hospital carts bring some relief, but their scarcity and limited mobility poses challenges. In the end, computers and documentation take up too much care time, which could otherwise be spent with the patient.

Mobile App as Nurses’ Helper

The mobile app introduced at the Kuopio University Hospital is designed to function as an aid, which fits into the nurse’s pocket to support and streamline the nursing process. Wireless patient data can be browsed while with the patient and new values and data documented via the app are transferred into the Electronic Health Record at once. The data is immediately visible to other nurses as well. Having real-time data is important for acutely ill patients in particular. As double entries are eliminated, the number of incorrect entries reduces significantly.

Päivi Kokkonen, development manager at the Hospital District of Northern Savo, says that the point-of-care mobile app is beneficial to the care staff, but also to physicians and special workers as physiological measurement values are immediately available for the decision-making process.

Kuopio University Hospital introduces several different app features at once. These features include observation value browsing and documenting, Early Warning Scoring (EWS) of the patient’s condition, and connections to the patient monitoring systems.

Ms. Kokkonen observes that functional planning and training are required of all introductions and that this applies, for example, to the introduction of EWS as well. It is not advisable to let the system lead, but an easy way of documentation does motivate the introduction of the system.

Even though the practice of mobile documentation is new and introductions are still at their early stages, the app has been well used at the Kuopio University Hospital with a great number of entries made at the units. More than 50,000 mobile entries are documented monthly, which means more than 600 hours of time saved every month. With data immediately available and more care time left, nurses can respond to any sudden changes in the patient’s condition more rapidly than before. Thus, the patient can be given the right care at the right time.

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