Skip to main content

Effects of HIS-based intervention on patient education process and patient satisfaction with nurses' education

Abstract

Objective

This quasi-experimental study (before and after intervention) was designed to determine the impact of hospital information system-based intervention on the patient education process and patient satisfaction in cardiac and cardiac intensive care units.

Results

Each nurse was observed at the time of patient education on average on eight shifts (total of 256 shifts), and at last 1350 computerized reports before and after the intervention were analyzed and 150 patient satisfaction with nurses' education questionnaires were completed before and after the intervention.

After the intervention, the patient education scores were significantly improved (pā€‰<ā€‰0.001). In addition, the results of a survey of patients about the level of satisfaction with the quality of patient education showed a significant increase compared to before the intervention (pā€‰<ā€‰0.001).

The ability to easily, completely, and quickly edit and record the provided education, eased the process of patient education and documentation.

Introduction

Although nurses are aware of the importance and legal and ethical responsibilities of patient education, it seems that they are not yet fully embracing their true role [1]. A study on nursesā€™ performance showed that a significant amount of care (62%) had been missed and that in 80% of cases, patient education was reported as one of the six missed nursing care [2]. In particular, a study found that 73.8% of the discharged patients stated that they needed to receive information about one or more of their health-related areas [3]. Training courses, educational videos; web-based programs are among the strategies implemented to carry out patient education [4,5,6,7]. However, the outcome of many of these methods is still unknown [8] or has little effect [9].

Electronic hospital information systems (HIS) are developed to achieve various goals such as managing storage, retrieval, information analysis, and research facilitation. In the field of nursing, it is only used to keep nursing reports [10, 11] and its educational capabilities are not widely used [12, 13]. Considering the capabilities of HIS, it can be used to improve the quality of nursing care and emphasize in-service education for nurses in hospitals [14,15,16].

Several studies have shown that despite the proper entering of nursing reports into the HIS, nurses have neglected the recording of patient education and discharge plans [14, 15, 17]. The reason for such shortcomings can be attributed to a lack of support for some forms, as well as the lack of ability to register specialized nursing services [11, 12].

Furthermore, studies on nursesā€™ understanding of working with HIS have shown that nurses rely less on their memory when using electronic documents due to their care options [18, 19]. In other words, by making changes to the system, the standards of education are always in place and the nurse will be able to study them at the right time, and based on the survey form, determines the training required for the individual patient, and records the necessary training of patient within the shortest time. Whereas other methods only increase the nurseā€™s awareness and may not always be available and, most importantly, do not record the training provided to the patient in the nursing report [18]. On the other hand, nurses can play an important role in the future long-term plans such as sustainable development, yet their role in the 2025 map of the health of Iran Health Information Technology is not completely clear. There is a demand for further improvement in this regard [20].

Therefore, following the challenges such as inadequacy of the patient education role of the nurse, the lack of both quality and content of patient education documentation in HIS, and given the fact that using technology and easy access to information is one of the indexes of WHOin country ranking, the use of HIS as an electronic case infrastructure, and at the same time as an educational tool is preferable to other methods. So far, only a few studies have addressed the educational role of HIS [21,22,23,24]. Such studies are observational, and no change has so far been made in the optimization of HIS based on the findings of other studies. To achieve the goal of enhancing HIS to improve nursing care, further research is needed to determine the most important components of a successful system and prevent costly errors [25].

In a previous study [26], by HIS optimization, the mean of bedside nursing care, nurse-patient, and team relationship have been improved. The present study is an extension to previously published research. Therefore, the present study was conducted for the first time in Iran with to determine the impact of a HIS-based intervention on the implementation of the patient education process and patient satisfaction.

Main text

Methods

Since studies have shown the need for high cardiac care to promote HIS and cardiovascular patientsā€™ need for education during hospitalization [27], cardiac and cardiac intensive care units were selected for this study.

A comprehensive literature review failed to identify an available measure that could be used to address the sample size calculation. The study population consisted of all nurses of the cardiac wards and CCU of Shahid Madani Heart Hospital who were studied using the whole enumerating method (Nā€‰=ā€‰32) in the years 2017ā€“2019.

According to Heshmati Nabavi et al. [28], 140 patients in two groups of before and after based on P1ā€‰=ā€‰0.1, P2ā€‰=ā€‰0.4 were estimated.

Inclusion criteria included clinical nursesā€™ employment during the study (8Ā months) in the cardiac or CCU wards, and the willingness to participate in the study. Consciousness, at least three days of hospitalization on the cardiac or CCU wards, and literacy were the inclusion criteria for the patient. Sampling was completed through nonrandom quota sampling.

This research was a quasi-experimental study (before and after intervention) that was conducted in four stages: preparatory, before the intervention, intervention, and after intervention (for a better understanding of the study steps, please see Fig.Ā 1).

Fig. 1
figure 1

Details of the study steps

Preparatory stage

In the pilot study, all the nurses, nursing managers, hospital managers, and IT unit tended to participate. At first, the goals and activities were examined. Based on the views of nursing managers and experienced CCU nurses, the Patient Assessment and Standard Education Need Form in collaboration with the HIS backing company (www.epd.ir/en) as an educational device was used to store or record information.

At this stage, the observation checklist for patient education was designed and installed in the HIS. The validity of the checklist was confirmed by the content validity method. This instrument was designed with 84 items and 8 axes: chest pain, rest-activity balance, cardiac patient diet, diabetic patient diet, nitroglycerine consumption, aspirin, constipation prevention, and participation in cardiac rehabilitation programs. The scores were allocated as: was done (2), was not recorded (1), was not done (0).

The internal reliability of the instrument was confirmed by the Cronbach alpha coefficient of 0.82. Furthermore, it was approved for sub-classes between 0.79ā€“0.81.

Another tool was the Patient Satisfaction From Nurses' Education questionnaire has been designed by Heshmati Nabavi et al. [29]. This questionnaire comprised 12 close-ended statements (satisfiedā€‰=ā€‰2, relatively satisfiedā€‰=ā€‰1, and not satisfiedā€‰=ā€‰0). Reliability of this self-report questionnaire by split half method and correlation coefficient, has been approved (0.85) [29]. The reliability of the questionnaire in the present study was ensured through Ī±ā€‰=ā€‰0.87.

Before intervention

Using information-gathering instruments, an assistant researcher observed the implementation of the patient education for two months; to minimize the effect of Hawthorne, she explained to the participants that the purpose of data collection was not to identify the errors in nursesā€™ work but understand the change in the process used to record patient education into an electronic system.

In addition, nine nursing records for 150 patients, registered in HIS (with emphasis on patient education) were reviewed before the intervention.

To collect patients' satisfaction with the quality of nurses' education, the researchers visited the wards during eight work shifts to select the participants. After determining the potential subjects, the authors briefed the patients or their family members and provided them with the questionnaire.

Intervention

At this stage, the method of using the assessment and educational needs forms through HIS was taught by the researcher to the nurses. The standard educational need included the title, objectives, training program, implementation, and evaluation that had been prepared in the system. The nurse read all the cases before education and after determining the educational needs based on the patientā€™s conditions, she/he gave the necessary education to the patient and then completed the implementation and evaluation sections based on the patientā€™s conditions and finally recorded in the patientā€™s computer file in the nursing report. In all shifts, the nurses implemented and recorded the education for four months. To facilitate the work processes, monitoring and formalizing the activities, the head nurse and educational supervisors, were selected as researchersā€™ partners and they continuously and daily supervised the training and gave feedback to the researcher. Meanwhile, the researcher appeared in various shifts to monitor and coordinate staff and respond to questions and receive feedback from nurses in the research environment.

After intervention

Within two months, the method of teaching patients was observed as intangible (controlling reports in HIS, visiting the patients) 8 times (based on the pilot) in different shifts by the researcher assistant. In addition, the records of 150 patients that were hospitalized for at least 3Ā days (nine records in the HIS) were reviewed. Also, during this period, data related to patients' satisfaction with nurse education were collected.

Data analysis method

Data analysis was performed using descriptive statistics (absolute and relative frequency, mean and standard deviation), and inferential statistics (paired t-test or Wilcoxon) with SPSS 21.

Results

Nurses and patients' demographics

The mean and standard deviation of nursesā€™ age was 26.37ā€‰Ā±ā€‰4.72Ā years old. In addition, 87.5% were female, 59.4 were single.

Female patients constituted 55.3 and 51.4% of the sample group before and after the intervention respectively. The average age of the participants was 40.91ā€‰Ā±ā€‰18.03 and 42.8ā€‰Ā±ā€‰16.03Ā years before and after the intervention respectively.

Patient education statistics

Paired T-test showed a significant increase (pā€‰=ā€‰0.001; tā€‰=ā€‰64.886) after the intervention. In addition, there was a significant difference between the mean and standard deviation of the patientā€™s education in the eight areas (Table 1).

Table 1 Patient education statistics

Patient satisfaction

After the changes, a 32% increase in satisfaction of cardiac patients was reported. In addition, according to Table 2, full satisfaction after changes with 85.7% has the highest frequency.

Table 2 Patientsā€™ satisfaction of the patient education in cardiac and cardiac intensive care units

Discussion

The findings of the present study showed that patients' educational outcomes were improved after using the patient education reports in HIS. While most studies have focused on writing and documentation [25], no study has been conducted to optimize the system for use in the patient education process. In a descriptive-analytical study, Sheikhtaheri et al. found that facilitators' conditions positively direct their actual nurses' use of HIS. Information quality, service quality, and system quality significantly increase nurses' satisfaction with HIS. Lastly, nurses' satisfaction with HIS and their actual use positively improves their performance [30].

In the present study, consistent with the above findings, the existence of editable standards programs allowed nurses to acquire professional knowledge and then run it on a patient-specific basis, and record it for each individual in the shortest time.

Another important finding of this study was a significant increase in patient's satisfaction with nurse education. Current findings confirm similar work by Mills et al. that found high patientsā€™ satisfaction with nursesā€™ use of point-of-care information technology in acute care. Congruent to our results, in a recent study, heart failure medication education resulted in improved patient-reported satisfaction scores and 30-day all-cause readmission rates [31] providing a training guide for patients, designing and installing a needs assessment and educational needs form in HIS will prepare the environment for HIS-based clinical education for clinical students and nurses, as well as for newly arrived clinicians. The ability for easy, complete, and quick editing and recording of the provided education helps in documentation thus this important, reliable, and accessible source can help conduct further research. Managers can also benefit from HIS by planning, organizing, upgrading manpower, controlling and evaluating, accrediting clinical governance, and implementing organizational excellence models this study has an important methodological point of view. Ahmadian et al. in their systematic review of 53 studies showed that no prior and subsequent studies have been conducted to evaluate HIS, which could be due to a lack of close collaboration between system developers and evaluators [25]. Kahouei et al. postulated that designing a study prior to and after the intervention method helps to determine how much the new system has solved the problem and helps investors to justify the costs and judgments about the possible costs of IT in the future [21].

Conclusion

In this research, HIS was effective in the process of patient education. However, after more than a decade of using this system, it is time to provide users such as nurses with a new generation of HIS with a patient-centered approach and provide easy access to standards of care for implementation and assessment of patients.

Limitation

One of the limitations of this study includes implementation in one educational hospital. It is recommended that in the future, research should focus on organizational strategies at the regional, national, and international levels and establish harmony among the strategic objectives of the organization, structure, organizational culture, and improvement of current processes.

Availability of data and materials

The data sets used and analyzed during this study can be provided from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

HIS:

Hospital Information Systems

WHO:

World Health Organization

CCU:

Coronary Care Unit

References

  1. Holland DE, Mistiaen P, Bowles KH. Problems and unmet needs of patients discharged ā€œhome to self-care.ā€ Prof Case Manag. 2011;16(5):240ā€“50.

    ArticleĀ  Google ScholarĀ 

  2. Kalisch BJ, Landstrom G, Williams RA. Missed nursing care: errors of omission. Nurs Outlook. 2009;57(1):3ā€“9.

    ArticleĀ  Google ScholarĀ 

  3. Friberg F, Granum V, Bergh AL. Nursesā€™ patient-education work: conditional factors-an integrative review. J Nurs Manag. 2012;20(2):170ā€“86.

    ArticleĀ  Google ScholarĀ 

  4. Liaw SY, Scherpbier A, Klainin-Yobas P, Rethans JJ. A review of educational strategies to improve nursesā€™ roles in recognizing and responding to deteriorating patients. Int Nurs Rev. 2011;58(3):296ā€“303.

    ArticleĀ  CASĀ  Google ScholarĀ 

  5. Govranos M, Newton JM. Exploring ward nursesā€™ perceptions of continuing education in clinical settings. Nurse Educ Today. 2014;34(4):655ā€“60.

    ArticleĀ  Google ScholarĀ 

  6. Warren JN, Luctkar-Flude M, Godfrey C, Lukewich J. A systematic review of the effectiveness of simulation-based education on satisfaction and learning outcomes in nurse practitioner programs. Nurse Educ Today. 2016;46:99ā€“108.

    ArticleĀ  Google ScholarĀ 

  7. Sinclair P, Kable A, Levett-Jones T. The effectiveness of internet-based e-learning on clinician behavior and patient outcomes: a systematic review protocol. Int J Nurs Stud. 2015;13(1):52ā€“64.

    Google ScholarĀ 

  8. Pesut B, Greig M. Resources for educating, training, and mentoring nurses and unregulated nursing care providers in palliative care: a review and expert consultation. J Palliative Med. 2018;21(S1):S50-s56.

    ArticleĀ  Google ScholarĀ 

  9. Chaghari M, Saffari M, Ebadi A, Ameryoun A. Empowering education: a new model for in-service training of nursing staff. J Adv Med Educ Prof. 2017;5(1):26ā€“32.

    PubMedĀ  PubMed CentralĀ  Google ScholarĀ 

  10. Laitinen H, Kaunonen M, Astedt-Kurki P. Patient-focused nursing documentation expressed by nurses. J Clin Nurs. 2010;19(3ā€“4):489ā€“97.

    ArticleĀ  Google ScholarĀ 

  11. Stevenson JE, Nilsson G. Nursesā€™ perceptions of an electronic patient record from a patient safety perspective: a qualitative study. J Adv Nurs. 2012;68(3):667ā€“76.

    ArticleĀ  Google ScholarĀ 

  12. Hessels A, Flynn L, Cimiotti JP, Bakken S, Gershon R. Impact of heath information technology on the quality of patient care. On-line J Nurs Informat. 2015: 19.

  13. Zhang J, Walji MF. TURF: toward a unified framework of EHR usability. J Biomed Inform. 2011;44(6):1056ā€“67.

    ArticleĀ  Google ScholarĀ 

  14. Blake-Mowatt C, Lindo JL, Bennett J. Evaluation of registered nursesā€™ knowledge and practice of documentation at a Jamaican hospital. Int Nurs Rev. 2013;60(3):328ā€“34.

    ArticleĀ  CASĀ  Google ScholarĀ 

  15. Wong FW. Chart audit: strategies to improve quality of nursing documentation. J Nurses Staff Dev. 2009;25(2):E1-6.

    ArticleĀ  Google ScholarĀ 

  16. Pazargadi M, Tafreshi MZ, Abedsaeedi Z, Majd HA, Lankshear AJ. Proposing indicators for the development of nursing care quality in Iran. Int Nurs Rev. 2008;55(4):399ā€“406.

    ArticleĀ  CASĀ  Google ScholarĀ 

  17. Cheevakasemsook A, Chapman Y, Francis K, Davies C. The study of nursing documentation complexities. Int J Nurs Pract. 2006;12(6):366ā€“74.

    ArticleĀ  Google ScholarĀ 

  18. Kelley TF, Brandon DH, Docherty SL. Electronic nursing documentation as a strategy to improve quality of patient care. J Nurs Scholarsh. 2011;43(2):154ā€“62.

    ArticleĀ  Google ScholarĀ 

  19. Asaro PV, Boxerman SB. Effects of computerized provider order entry and nursing documentation on workflow. Acad Emerg Med. 2008;15(10):908ā€“15.

    ArticleĀ  Google ScholarĀ 

  20. Sadoughi F, Azadi T, Azadi T. Nursesā€™ contribution to health information technology of Iranā€™s 2025 health map: a review of the document. Stud Health Technol Informat. 2016;225:163ā€“7.

    Google ScholarĀ 

  21. Kahouei M, Zadeh JM, Roghani PS. The evaluation of the compatibility of electronic patient record (EPR) system with nursesā€™ management needs in a developing country. Int J Med Informatics. 2015;84(4):263ā€“70.

    ArticleĀ  Google ScholarĀ 

  22. Alipour J, Karimi A, Ebrahimi S, Ansari F, Mehdipour Y. Success or failure of hospital information systems of public hospitals affiliated with Zahedan University of medical sciences: a cross sectional study in the Southeast of Iran. Int J Med Informat. 2017;108:49ā€“54.

    ArticleĀ  Google ScholarĀ 

  23. Darvish A, Bahramnezhad F, Keyhanian S, Navidhamidi M. The role of nursing informatics on promoting quality of health care and the need for appropriate education. Global J Health Sci. 2014;6(6):11ā€“8.

    ArticleĀ  Google ScholarĀ 

  24. Meraji M, Ramazan Ghorbani N, Mahmoodian S, Samadbeik M. Applications of information technology in nursing during 2005ā€“15: evidence from Iran. Studies Health Technol Informat. 2016;225:643ā€“4.

    Google ScholarĀ 

  25. Ahmadian L, Nejad SS, Khajouei R. Evaluation methods used on health information systems (HISs) in Iran and the effects of HISs on Iranian healthcare: a systematic review. Int J Med Informat. 2015;84(6):444ā€“53.

    ArticleĀ  Google ScholarĀ 

  26. Toulabi T, Vanaki Z, Memarian R, Namdari M. Optimization of hospital electronic information system in cardiac care unit: A participatory action research. Yafte. 2013;14(5):83ā€“91.

    Google ScholarĀ 

  27. Toulabi T, Vanaki Z, Memarian R, Namdari M. Quality of nursing documentations in CCU by hospital information system (HIS). Critical Care Nursing. 2012;5(13):53ā€“62.

    Google ScholarĀ 

  28. Heshmati Nabavi F, Rajabpoor M, Mahmoodi J, Pouresmail Z, Mikaniki T. Comparing the patientā€™s satisfaction with educational performance of the physicians and the nurses. Jundishapur J Chronic Dissease Care. 2016;5(1): e60306.

    Google ScholarĀ 

  29. Heshmati Nabavi F, Memarian R, Vanaki Z. The effect of implementing clinical supervision model on the patient education outcomes. Health Promot Management. 2012;1(3):28ā€“36.

    Google ScholarĀ 

  30. Sheikhtaheri A, Malekzadeh S, Hashemi NS, Hashemi N. Effects of using hospital information systems on nursesā€™ individual performance: a study on influential factors. Stud Health Technol Informat. 2020;271:161ā€“7.

    Google ScholarĀ 

  31. Mills AA, Rodeffer KM, Quick SL. Impact of heart failure transitions of care program: a prospective study of heart failure education and patient satisfaction. Hosp Pharm. 2021;56(4):252ā€“8.

    ArticleĀ  Google ScholarĀ 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to all nurses for participating in the study

Funding

This paper was conducted with the financial support of Lorestan University of Medical Sciences. The funding agency played no role in the design of the study, collection, analysis, and interpretation of data and writing the manuscript.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

TT, and FM contributed to the study aim, research design, and overall structure of the manuscript. FM conducted all the statistical analyses and drafted the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Fatemeh Mohammadipour.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The Ethical Code (IR.LUMS.REC. 200.93.3453) was received from the Ethics Committee of the Lorestan University of Medical Sciences. All study participants were mindful of the aims of the research and voluntarily signed the consent form. They have been ensured the privacy of data, and anonymously, the questionnaires have been filled out.

Consent for publication

No applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Toulabi, T., Mohammadipour, F. Effects of HIS-based intervention on patient education process and patient satisfaction with nurses' education. BMC Res Notes 15, 198 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-022-06046-8

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-022-06046-8

Keywords