Change In Nursing

I have been working in the nursing home for three years now, and I have seen technological changes over the years. At first, we were using an old kiosking system to document activities of daily living (ADLs), intake and output (I&Os), vital signs (VS), and restorative nursing, while utilizing the paper MAR for medication administration and paper patients’ charts. We write our nurses’ notes in the paper chart. Our residents had been using call bells to notify staff whenever they need something. We also used an old bed alarm system, which was loud once a resident is out of bed. The management has find ways in order to improve patient care without being intrusive like the alarm system we used. According to Lippitt (as cited in Blais & Hayes, 2011), “planned change is an intended, purposive attempt by an individual, group, organization, or larger social system to influence the status quo of itself, another organism, or a situation” (p. 255).

First, we adopted pager system and it changed how we receive an alarm or call from the residents. Before, we can see call light outside a resident’s room when a resident need something or hear a loud alarm when a bed or chair alarm is activated. With the new system, each staff carries a pager and we receive call bells and bed/chair alarm in our pager. Recently, we adopted the Matrix Care system. We have not fully utilized its capabilities as of the moment. The LNAs use the point of care (POC) of the Matrix Care system to document ADLs, I&Os, VS, restorative nursing, and behaviors. Nurses use the POC, eMAR, put in doctor’s orders and automatic drug ordering to the pharmacy. We have not utilized the charting component of it yet. There are kiosk terminals placed in the facility as well as computer-on-wheels (COWs) to accommodate staff in charting or documenting pertinent