“Blind leading the blind”: Qualitative evaluation of unanticipated difficulties during nurse testing of a hospital health information system

Ten statements to support nurse leaders implement e-health tools for nursing work in hospitals: A modified Delphi study

AIM

To use expert consensus to develop guidance for nurse leaders implementing e-health tools to support nursing work in hospitals.

BACKGROUND

Nurse leaders are increasingly required to make decisions about the selection, development, implementation and optimisation of e-health tools for nursing work in hospitals. Guidance in this rapidly evolving and complex space is limited.

DESIGN

A two-phase modified Delphi study.

METHODS

Phase one involved in-depth interviews with five nursing informatics experts. Analysis used the qualitative framework method, informed by the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF), to develop statements for an anonymous online Delphi scoring survey. This was distributed using snowball sampling methods to Australian nurse informatics leaders and experts. Final analysis involved synthesis of qualitative and quantitative data. The study adheres to the COnsolidated criteria for REporting Qualitative research (COREQ) checklist.

RESULTS

Ten guidance statements to support nurse leaders to implement e-health tools in hospitals were developed from the synthesis of qualitative interview data and 29 experts' responses to the 55-item Delphi response survey.

CONCLUSION

Implementation of e-health tools for nursing work is complex in health settings and requires careful examination of multiple factors and interactions between clinicians, tools, service users and the health organisation. This research proposes ten statements to support nurse leaders with decisions about implementing e-health tools to support nursing work in hospitals.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE

The ten statements developed by this research provide a resource to assist policy and practice decisions about e-tools to ensure they are suited to supporting nursing work. Nurse leaders can use the ten statements for guidance in the selection, development, implementation and optimisation of e-health tools to ensure suitability and adaptation for nursing work in hospitals.

Qualitative research on end-of-life communication with family carers in nursing homes: A discussion of methodological issues and challenges

Aim

To identify and summarize the challenges of conducting qualitative research exploring end-of-life communication between healthcare providers and bereaved family carers in nursing homes.

Design

A descriptive qualitative study based on in-the-field-notes and research diaries collected during a primary study involving 32 bereaved family carers and 14 nurses across 13 Italian nursing homes in 2018-2019.

Methods

Two trained female nurses conducted semi-structured, in-depth, open-ended interviews and recorded "in action" (i.e. reflections reported as in-the-field-notes) and "on action" (i.e. retrospective reflections within the team reported immediately in the research diaries) narratives, with the aim of identifying challenges encountered during the research process. A content analysis process was performed to analyse the narratives collected.

Results

We identified three major categories of challenges: (a) obtaining approval from the ethical committee; (b) approaching nursing homes and family carers; and (c) dealing with participant-related impairments (i.e. memory, emotional, physical).