Globally, nurses are at the forefront of the response to the COVID-19 outbreak, working in extremely difficult circumstances and under continual pressure to maintain optimum standards of care. Here Tim Morris, Commercial Portfolio and Partnerships Director, Elsevier, discusses how technology can help support and enable nurses to fight COVID-19.
What are some of the main demands COVID-19 is currently placing on nursing staff, and how can technology best be used to alleviate some of that pressure to support care provision?
Globally, nurses are at the forefront of the arduous journey to combat and contain COVID-19, undertaking long, gruelling shifts in their armour and masks. Increased concerns about contracting the virus alongside a lack of sufficient PPE supplies have resulted in high levels of mental health issues within the nursing community. According to the British Medical Association 28% of health care professionals have said their mental health condition has got worse during the pandemic. The informational challenges that the nursing workforce are facing are also numerous, keeping up to date with policy changes, treatment developments and changes to clinical guidelines alongside maintaining quality care to improve patient outcomes, is hard to manage.
This highlights the need for dependable, accurate information as, in situations where guidelines and research are evolving rapidly, decisions need to be made fast. Being a senior nurse in emergency medicine 24 years ago, I was used to the unknown. Every day was a challenge – I was not sure what was going to come through the door or how patients may react – there was an element of thrill as well as trepidation. This, however, is different. The invisible virus is highly contagious, known to kill vast numbers of patients and its transmission is not easily traced. These factors add an additional level of anxiety impacting both healthcare professionals and their families at home.
Increasing the adoption of digital technologies has been vital to support nursing staff in order to alleviate some of the pressures they are facing. Technology interventions can help nurses streamline many administrative processes, enhance productivity and reduce care variability by providing up to date clinical information from reputable sources which is easily accessible. We have seen a staggering number of retired nurses return to the workforce, with more than 15,000 coming back to service within the NHS alone. As a result, technology has also been crucial in assisting with onboarding and training, freeing up time and resources elsewhere.
How is technology helping nurses to ensure continuity and consistency of care?
Technology is a vital way to standardise the level of care within healthcare systems by reducing care variability and ensuring consistency to improve patient outcomes. According to a report published by the Queens Nursing Institute 74% of community nurses find IT systems a more reliable way of working so it is important these systems are aligned throughout healthcare organisations to ensure they are being utilised effectively. Safe systems, that have been developed to assist nurses both during these challenging times and beyond, must contain evidence-based information to ensure that all nurses are practicing according to the latest information and organisational standards in to build competencies in these times. Systems must be interoperable to permit information to be shared securely to support the care of patients throughout, to further support to continuity and consistency of care.
Additionally, nurses who are remotely providing telehealth services also need readily available access to knowledge to make informed decisions on behalf of their patients, outside of the hospital environment.
They can turn to evidence-based knowledge platforms and open access resources to easily retrieve important information about COVID-19 and other diseases to provide in-depth answers and give the best care to patients in the safest way possible.
With staff levels under intense pressure, how can organisations ensure that nurses have access to necessary data, knowledge, policy information and training resources to allow them to carry out their duties, without adding unnecessary additional burden?
Numerous healthcare service providers have released free access to clinical guidance and support systems for COVID-19. These contain clinical information, care plans and protocols, order sets and decision support solutions, to support nurses with their understanding and help them with the management of COVID-19. Systems are aligned and are easily accessible both on mobile devices and computer systems allowing HCPs to continue to make best use of valuable time without adding an unnecessary burden. Quick access to nursing care plans, standardises the information available for nurses and reduces information variability, preventing potential problems and omissions of care. That way, when a nurse goes to assess someone for a respiratory compromise, they understand what they should be looking for and are supported with evidence-based goals and interventions. When care planning is integrated into the electronic medical record, they’re prompted through the system on what factors they should be looking at, another way nurses can be guided easily and effectively.
These free-to-access, educational resources and toolkits, such as those available via Elsevier’s Healthcare Hub, acknowledge the intense pressure they are currently under and subsequently support them with the necessary information to alleviate this. Rapid e-Learning training plans, such as those available on the NHS’ E-learning for Healthcare site, have also been developed by healthcare organisations to support the redeployment of staff nurses making the transition into unfamiliar settings.
How can organisations best utilise technology as they start to resume provision of non-COVID-19 services?
As we are now beginning to see lockdown restrictions ease throughout Europe, routine surgeries, cancer treatments and postponed consultations will resume. The CovidSurg Collaborative has projected that, based on a 12-week period of peak disruption to hospital services due to COVID-19, 28.4 million elective surgeries worldwide will have been cancelled. As a result, beyond COVID-19, nurses’ workloads will not ease and, in many cases, will increase significantly. As a result, it is vital that the healthcare systems and support tools that have been put in place are maintained to support nurses in the continuation of quality care and patient safety.
The uptake in digital technologies over the past few months has highlighted that we do have the technology to strengthen our health care systems for our patients, and support nurses and it’s time to maintain these to increase our preparedness for the future.