Authors (including presenting author) :
Lee CM, Ching WC, Chow PC, Chan WH, Tsang HW, Kwok MW
Affiliation :
Department of Rehabilitation and Extended Care, TWGHs Wong Tai Sin Hospital
Introduction :
Leaders in Hospital Authority always keen on implementing new technology into real practice. I would like to introduce the improvement program that have had done in a ward of WTSH in years 2019-2020 regarding how “Clinical Cam” and “Patient Album” apps that existed in the Authority provided iPad could help refining and upscaling the traditional clinical handling process of wound photo taking.
Objectives :
1. Review and refine the current clinical processing of wound photo taking by means of manipulability and safety regarding the newly-introduced tool (i.e. iPad); 2. Reinforcing nursing care by means of the reviewed process of wound photo taking
Methodology :
In brief, we decided to substitute the traditional way of wound photo taking of using digital camera with the mentioned iPad apps. Colleagues’ performance was being reviewed by using two dedicated checklists, in a pre-/post-test manner.
Result & Outcome :
Colleagues showed general acceptance toward the new method. In the meantime, feedbacks showed promising results of providing benefits such as increased visibility of the wound that allows higher accuracy of wound assessment (e.g. size, depth, exudate etc.) as well as wound progress tracking and increased accessibility. By means of increased accessibility, the uploaded wound photo in CMS makes cluster-wise cross-hospital assessment from different experts become feasible, which only available for limited aspects in the old day and thereby highly accelerate the time of a more proper management being given to patient. The post-test revealed greater proficiency of colleagues using the referring apps, even for those who used to not familiar with electronic products. In conclusion, the implementation of the mentioned apps seems subtle to the usual nursing care progress, but the advantages it brings to us are immeasurable. Based on the current functions of the apps, we can project few more usages to the future. For examples, nurse can examine their new method of promoting wound healing while using these apps for wound healing progress tracking, or gathering data more easily for research purpose. Hopefully colleagues can be inspired from this project and thereby bombarding other ideas of using new technology, so as to not just help streamlining the current workflow but also provide better care to our patient.
