Enhancing Nurses Access for Care, Quality and Knowledge Through Technology

 

 

The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. By area and population, the Dominican Republic is the second largest Caribbean nation after Cuba with 48,442 square kilometres and approximately 10 million people. Saint Kitts, also known as Saint Christopher Island is located in the West Indies on the borders of the Caribbean Sea. This island is one of the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles; it is situated approximately 2,100 km southeast of Miami, Florida with a population of around 35,000. Saint Lucia is an island country, also in the eastern Caribbean Sea on the boundary with the Atlantic Ocean and is also part of the Lesser Antilles. It is located northwest of Barbados with an estimated population of 173,765.

 

It is among these three places that Dr’s Sandra Bassendowski and Pammla Petrucka commenced a project with the goal of “Enhancing Nurses Access for Care Quality and Knowledge through Technology” (ENACQKT). This initiative emerged as a new project based on the experiences of the ‘Linkages for Education and Research in Nursing’ (LeaRN). The project expands on the demonstrated utility of a simple ICT infrastructure and toolkit (i.e., Personal Digital Assistant’s, wireless connectivity, and health relevant software) and builds capacity in the relevant areas of clinical applications, innovations, and knowledge transfer/exchange.

 

PDAs were introduced to 25 nurses/nursing students in the Dominican Republic, 22 in St Christopher-Nevis [St. Kitts], and 20 in the Commonwealth of Dominica. During the introduction, the emphasis was having nurses gain a working knowledge of the equipment and basic applications. There was significant variation in the technical skills of nurses across sites, ranging from no experience to related competencies (i.e., text messaging). The nurses in the English speaking sites had a palette of nursing programs downloaded on their machines, whereas the Spanish site had only a basic program health care available for download.

 

It is important to recognize that related experiences of the past few years have been significant to inform the current project. The project team is comprised of 2 members from each island – one researcher and one technical – plus a third person on the Canadian team and an external evaluator. In addition to the significant team capacity building and growth depicted during the past few years, the teams on each island have been stabilized and interactive. The team have identified strengths,weaknesses, and potential gaps in their individual and collective roles. Individuals have self-identified to build capacity in particular areas, such as data analysis. The outcomes mapping session contributed to joint understanding, collegial relationship building, and team visioning.

 

Dr’s Pammla Petrucka and Sandra Bassendowski visited St. Lucia and St. Kitts in September, 2011 to discuss issues of sustainability with the researchers and IT members from each of these islands. The researcher from Dominica was also able to attend the meetings. The team discussed the idea of “where to next in terms of technology and its relationship to nursing practice.” The team members discussed new and emerging technology and how this might be incorporated into current nursing practices.