Core nursing process improvement enabled by wireless services

The research by Maliranta and Rouvinen based on the Finnish industrial statistics confirms that the productivity improvements in firms correlate to organizational and process changes (Maliranta and Rouvinen, 2003 and Maliranta and Rouvinen, 2004). These results implied a further question: Which types of process changes create the most beneficial productivity improvements in different environments. This question should be of major importance when new services are applied or developed. The research on process improvements has been done in ETLA and in the University of Oulu, where the Three Viewpoint Methodology (3VPM) (Martikainen, 2007) was developed for productivity analysis. In this paper we apply the 3VPM methodology to analyze the nursing documentation process and the impact of documentation process improvement by wireless services on core nursing process in Kyoto University Hospital. The information was collected by interviews and server logs. We have analyzed the benefit of introducing wireless PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) devices to update patient data on place instead of writing it down by hand and later storing it into the system on PC (Personal Computer) and consider other possible solutions like sensors, wireless tracking and touch by device paradigm. Nursing documentation process can be clearly improved and the improvement of the nursing process can be as much as 14%. This means that the same patient intensity can be achieved with less number of nurses.