The Clinical Trial

SmartWard’s functionality, unlike other hospital systems, is grounded in hard evidence of clinical value. Other systems make claims about similar functions but none have the researched capability of SmartWard.

SmartWard has been developed over 5 years with extensive input from clinicians. Development included focus groups, structured ward observations, clinical simulations and culminated in a live clinical trial conducted by Deakin University’s Centre for Clinical Nursing Research and hosted by Eastern Health, a Melbourne public hospital network. Epworth HealthCare’s Health Information Management Department and RMIT University’s Health Innovations Research Institute also provided expert analysis.

The SmartWard system showed the ability to adapt quickly and cost-effectively to changing clinical needs. During the course of the trial, 57 changes were implemented in response to user feedback, without defect. This agility and system architecture set new standards for implementing and improving the delivery of healthcare across all providers within the continuum of care.

Other systems make claims about similar functions but none have the researched capability of SmartWard.

The trial showed that nurses’ familiarity with SmartWard evolved quickly, as did their confidence using the system.

Findings included:

• The time nurses spent on documentation more than halved.
  
• The time nurses spent interacting with patients increased three-fold; SmartWard allowed nurses to save at least 15% of the time they were spending on other tasks.
  
• Time spent planning, assessing and implementing patient care as a proportion of nursing process activities improved by more than 30%.
  
• Nurses undertook more documentation at the point of care, rather than later in places such as the nurses’ station, where the risk of error increases. With the use of SmartWard, 60% of nursing documentation took place at the bedside, compared to just 24% previously.
• There was a 15% overall increase in the proportion of nursing activities performed at patients’ bedsides when using SmartWard.

Participating nurses confirmed that SmartWard assisted them with care implementation – both by freeing up time to concentrate on patients and by providing prompts and reminders on scheduled care.

Nurses identified that SmartWard helped them by:

• Reducing interruptions and the need to multi-task, both of which have the potential to increase risk of error and missed care.
• Eliminating the need to hunt for documents as SmartWard’s electronic records are always available at the bedside and other points of care.
  
• Assisting compliance with clinical care guidelines.
  
• Enhancing compliance with standards for patient identification, with identifiers such as photographs embedded into patient records.
  
• Making it easy to create accurate records-of-care through user-friendly touch screens.
  
• Making it easy to access records needed to inform clinical decision-making.