Implementing a Mobile Wireless Environment in a Hospital Ward: Encouraging Adoption by Nursing

Sophisticated technology is commonplace in most hospitals and increasingly mobile devices are being used in hospitals by clinical staff. Although the growth in mobile device usage in hospitals has the potential to contribute to better health and medical services delivery, nurses and doctors are still very reliant on paper-based information. Much of the research reported to date has focused on technical and design issues around mobile devices. Research that has focused on mobile device use in practice has tended to be from the perspective of doctors. This paper describes research which investigated key issues that arose as a result of the implementation of mobile wireless (MW) devices in a hospital ward from the perspective of the nursing staff. Although some of the nurses’ concerns related to technological aspects the main concerns focussed on access to, and security of the devices and organisational implementation problems they experienced. From the findings we have identified the factors that need to be addressed in the implementation environment for successful adoption of the technologies. Further, we propose a holistic approach to the introduction of MW technologies in hospital ward settings.