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An Experimental Paradigm for the Prediction of Post-Operative Pain (PPOP)
Published on: January 27, 2010
Data management using the personal digital assistant in an acute pain service
1Department of Anaesthesiology, Intensive Care and Operating Services, Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital, 11 Chuen On Street, Tai Po, New Territory, Hong Kong, SAR.
Anaesthesia and Intensive Care
|April 3, 2004
Summary
Personal digital assistants (PDAs) offer a satisfactory solution for acute pain services, reducing paper usage and data management time. While slightly less intuitive for cumulative data access than paper, PDAs ensure no missed patient follow-ups or data entries.
Area of Science:
- Medical Informatics
- Clinical Practice Management
Background:
- Physicians increasingly utilize handheld personal digital assistants (PDAs) for information and data management.
- Acute pain services (APS) traditionally rely on paper-based systems for patient data.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate a PDA-based data management system within an acute pain service.
- To compare staff experience, efficiency, and data accuracy between PDA and paper systems.
Main Methods:
- A structured questionnaire assessed staff attitudes towards paper vs. PDA systems before and after PDA implementation.
- Time spent on acute pain rounds and data management was compared between systems.
- Patient data from 177 patients (635 visits) were analyzed over three months.
Main Results:
- User satisfaction and access to drug references/guidelines were similar between systems.
- PDAs were found to be easy to use, though slightly less so than paper for cumulative data access (P=0.007).
- No missed follow-ups or data entries occurred with PDA use; round times were comparable (Paper: 8.8±3.2 min vs. PDA: 7.0±2.0 min, P=0.151).
Conclusions:
- The PDA system demonstrated satisfactory performance in an acute pain service setting.
- PDAs have the potential to significantly reduce paper consumption (estimated 650 sheets annually) and data management time (estimated 130 man-hours annually).
- PDA implementation ensures data integrity by preventing missed entries and patient follow-ups.
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