The Health Care Aides & Technology Project (HCA-T)
From SSRG Annoki
People Involved
Ioanis Nikolaidis Eleni Stroulia
Funded by AHW (see http://www.rehabresearch.ualberta.ca/hca-t/about)
http://www.cybera.ca/news-and-events/news/a-new-kind-of-tablet-in-health-care/
In Alberta, there are approximately 20,300 health care aides (HCAs) serving the needs of clients with short term and long term health conditions in the community and institutions.
Second to nurses, this is the largest group of front line service providers in health. It is projected that by 2016, there will be a shortage of 5,000 HCAs. The demand on these service providers and the teams they work in will continue to increase, particularly in home care within the community with increasing numbers of older adults living at home with chronic conditions.
A variety of technologies are currently being applied to assist clients with activities of daily living and to facilitate health care delivery. However, there has been little or no investigation into commercial, ‘off-the-shelf’ Information Communications Technologies (ICT) to address the workload of HCAs. Moreover, aside from an effort to ensure a standard province-wide curriculum and basic competencies, the workflow varies across the province depending on location and types of clients served.
This interdisciplinary project addresses a key strategic objective of Alberta’s Health Workforce Action Plan – to increase the capacity of the health workforce by increasing productivity and reducing workload through the application of ICT. The objectives of this one year project are to:
- Document and analyze the HCAs’ workflows, including team interactions.
- Collaborate with service providers and expert groups to identify key HCA workload issues, and identify and deploy existing, affordable technologies to address these issues
- Assess the impact of these technological solutions on workflow and productivity of HCAs, their health-care teams and client care.
Project Timelines: February 1, 2011 – March 31, 2012, with final reporting due on May 15, 2012.
(You will have to request a password from Stroulia to access these apps)
Click here to download the current version of the HCAMobile app (for the older 7in tablets, as of January 3, 2012).
Click here to download the current version of the HCAMobile app (for the newer 10in tablets, as of January 8, 2012).
Click here to download the current version of the HCAMobile app (it should work on both 7in and 10in tablets, as of January 9, 2012). Note that the address for accessing the head-nurse web-based application is http://talbot.cs.ualberta.ca:8080
Click here to download the January 27 version of the HCAMobile.
Click here to download the January 31 version of the HCAMobile.
Click here to download the February 1 version of the HCAMobile.
Click here to download the February 6 version of the HCAMobile.
Click here to download the March 5 version of the HCAMobile.
Click here to download the March 21 version of the HCAMobile.