Document(s) 15 of 15

Glenville Daniel

A Canadian program helps improve health care in the Caribbean

Nursing faculty and students from the Caribbean could soon be participating in exchanges with counterparts in Saskatchewan. The Canadian Nurses Association has opened its Internet portal, NurseONE, to Caribbean nurses — a first.

These are two of the outcomes of IDRC-supported research to improve the quality of care in Caribbean hospitals by providing nurses with access to much needed medical information and to training materials. The tools to do so: wireless networks in hospitals and hand-held personal digital assistants (PDAs) for nursing staff. The research is administered by the College of Nursing, University of Saskatchewan (Regina). Spearheading the project in St Kitts and Nevis are Dr Hazel Roberts and information technology consultant Glenville Daniel. According to Dr Roberts, “The project would not have been possible had it not been for the sponsorship of IDRC. They have been very flexible.”

An IDRC-funded project in St Kitts and Nevis equips nurses with personal digital assistants to help them access information and provide better health care.

Glenville Daniel

One of the big problems here is the lack of information technology tools in the workplace. When our hospital was rebuilt in 2003, it should have been equipped with network wiring  — but that wasn’t done. As a result, I had to establish a wireless network from scratch.

This project is seen as a pilot to determine what the new norm should be in using information and communication technology in a clinical setting. The study looks at how PDAs can affect care-delivery in the nursing field for diabetes, hypertension, and HIV. Seventeen nurses have been given a PDA, loaded with medical software (including a medical dictionary, 5-minute consultation guide, and the like) and wireless access. We are also following 13 nurses who have not been given PDAs.

An enthusiastic uptake

Nurses are seeing the value of such a device and have said the PDAs have enhanced their timely access to information. We have even seen a couple of nurses use them as a teaching tool to explain to a patient that they were going to have a particular procedure, something we didn’t expect.

Another thing that I am hoping to see, which is already underway, is the establishment of a health information system on the island. The government IT department is in the process of developing this, and we have been talking to them and giving them some ideas.

I give this work a very high mark already. It is revolutionizing the way nurses access information in a clinical setting, not just in nursing. The effects of the project will touch everyone, no matter where they are from on the islands.

Document(s) 15 of 15