Research Topic:
In response to needs of older adults at the end-of-life and challenges in the recruitment and retention of healthcare providers in home care in the South West Community Care Access Center, a new and innovative model of home care, eShift, has been developed. eShift links unregulated care providers (technicians) providing home care to a remotely-situated Directing Registered Nurse (DRN), through a smart phone application using real-time communication and documentation technology. The DRN monitors and directs appropriate, safe, and effective care provided in collaboration with the technician in real-time, enhancing quality of care delivery for older adults and their family caregivers.
Findings:
Nurse practitioners providing home-based palliative care were interviewed (n= 4) early in the study and six months later. When commenting on those patients who received care through the eShift model, nurse practitioners described their patients as receiving consistent team-based care that the patient’s condition was well monitored, and they had good symptom management. They also believed that patients were able to rest better knowing that their families were receiving some respite care. At the beginning of this study, nurse practitioners indicated to the researchers that they were not able to access patient information through the eShift portal. Nurse practitioners indicated that access to all patient information including patients receiving eShift would facilitate care. This information was conveyed to decision-makers by researchers during the study. Our later interviews with nurse practitioners suggest that they were beginning to access the eShift portal to review patient information.
This project is supported by a team of researchers & led by co-principal investigators:
Lorie Donelle, RN, PhD, Associate Professor, Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing and School of Health Studies, Western University. ldonelle@uwo.ca
Sandra Regan, RN, PhD, Associate Professor, Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing, Western University. sregan4@uwo.ca
Suggested Citation: Donelle, L., Regan, S. (2016, April). E-shift, an innovative home care model: Perceptions of nurse practitioners. Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing.