The Effectiveness of a Digital Solution on Improving Patient Experience

Area of Science:

• Healthcare quality improvement
• Patient engagement strategies
• Digital health implementation

Background:

• Patient experience is a critical healthcare performance metric.
• Tertiary hospitals are exploring digital tools to improve patient care.
• Bedside tablets offer potential for enhanced patient information access and communication.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the impact of bedside tablet implementation on patient experience over time.
• To assess changes in specific patient experience domains: nurse communication, patient involvement, addressing concerns, and family information.
• To test the hypothesis that patient experience improves with tablet implementation and added functionalities.

Main Methods:

• Prospective observational study at Singapore General Hospital.
• Sequential cross-sectional sampling across tablet implementation phases (June 2019 - July 2024).
• Validated Picker Patient Experience Questionnaire assessing four key domains; data analyzed with descriptive statistics and Kruskal-Wallis tests.

Main Results:

• Positive scores for nurse communication clarity and patient involvement increased significantly.
• Patient involvement peaked with added functionalities like self-charting.
• Addressing patient concerns yielded the lowest scores; family information provision showed a steady decline.

Conclusions:

• Bedside tablets positively impacted nurse communication and patient involvement in care decisions.
• Areas needing improvement include addressing patient concerns and family information dissemination.
• Quantitative scoring methods may limit understanding of nuanced patient experiences; qualitative data integration is recommended.