eEvidence: supplying evidence to the patient interaction

Nursing demands that all care offered to patients is appropriately assessed, delivered and evaluated; the care offered must be up to date and supported by adequately researched published evidence. A basic logic suggests that information and communications technology can help the nurse in maintaining his/her care provision to the highest level through presenting relevant evidence. The nursing need for evidence to support the delivery of care is a global phenomenon. Within the project this is demonstrated by the fact that the project lead is resident in England and the project is being carried out in Singapore with the help of the National University Hospital, the Alice Lee Centre of Nursing Studies and the School of Computing at the National University of Singapore. The project commenced in January 2008, this paper will present the background thinking to the project design and will describe the outcomes which will provide nurses with individual supportive evidence for their practice gleaned from quality assured sources. The project will use information and communications technology to provide the evidence on an individual basis. The paper will outline the four key elements of the project, these being the development of user (professional) profiles; the design and development of an automatic crawler search engine to deliver quality assured evidence sources and software design; there will be some mention of hardware design and maintenance which is the fourth key element. Within the paper, consideration will be given to the added value of the project to the nurses, their patients/clients, the research agenda and the employing organisation: The drive for information is determined by the nurses in clinical and community practice. Evidence available immediately at the point of intervention with patient/client. No patient information stored within structure. All technology and almost all support software already available. Additional information can flow both ways for quality and activity audits. Identification of areas weak in evidence requiring supportive research will be driven by practice. Immediate dissemination of new generic practices and principles can be delivered to each nurse on syncopation, removing the requirements for paper updates etc. Process can be transferred across all healthcare clinical professions In conclusion, information will be given on progress to date in terms of technical applicability and user acceptance by the nursing staff. In addition, an insight will be given as to managing a multiprofessional, multi-organisational project from a distance.