DEVELOPING A COMPUTER AIDED EVALUATION TOOL TO MEASURE THE QUANTITY OF NURSING CARE, BASED ON NURSING DIAGNOSIS, FOR...

In order to find out the indicators for quality, it is necessary to define a scale, which permits us to measure the outcome of health care in relationship to the hospital activities. A descriptive survey method developmental in nature was undertaken on a purposive sample of 100 Nursing Cadets, working in the Medical-Surgical Wards. The Nursing Process Approach Model was used with the objectives of first reviewing the existing system of evaluation of nursing care rendered, then a computerized evaluation tool was designed and developed in Foxpro 2.5 pogramming language and its effectiveness was tested on the student sample. Findings suggested that 57.14% of the faculty members felt that there was no standardized tool to measure the quality of the nursing care rendered in the wards. 64.29% stated the absence of set criteria for measuring quality. While 89% of the students expressed that the computerized tool directed them to render basic nursing care in a systematic manner, 70%of them expressed that competent, accountable and compassionate nursing care could be rendered using the tool. It also gave impartial evaluation of the quality of nursing care rendered based on nursing diagnosis (p<0.01). Results could serve as an initiative for ongoing research on information feedback system as well as recording action taken to keep performance in line with the standards of patient care.