Determinants of Point-of-Care Technology Use among Health Care Workers in Comprehensive Care Centres, A Case of Central Kenya
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Date
2023
Authors
Muiruri, Keziah
Gitahi, Mary Wangui
Otieno, George Ochieng
King’utu, Kevin
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
EANSO
Abstract
The Point of Care (POC) approach is the highest level of interaction between
health care workers (HCW) and the information system, which generally
requires interaction during clinical meetings. Although it is hard to do so, it
offers the most significant benefits. The POC strategy offers the system’s
benefits to healthcare workers, patients, and those who monitor and evaluate
them. The study focused on identifying key determinants of point-of-care
technology use among healthcare workers offering services in comprehensive
care centres in Central Kenya. A Cross-sectional descriptive study was
adopted, two-stage cluster sampling design method was used in determining
the sample size. The study involved a sample size of 217 respondents and over
a 100% was achieved. The study results revealed that social demographic
factors of health care workers have no significant influence on POC
technology use as a p-value of above 0.05 was observed on all the variables.
Some organisational factors such as adequate workstations (p = 0.0) and EMR
reducing patient time (p = 0.012) were found to have significant influence on
POC technology use. Significant influence on POC use was noted on source
of funding for software and hardware maintenance (p = 0.001). The utilisation
of EMR to review client progress in real-time (p = 0.001) was found to have a
significant influence on POC technology use as well as the use of EMR to
report to the national reporting system (KHIS) (p = 0.014). 71% of respondents
reported that availability of clinical decision support features in the EMR was
contributing to improved use of POC. An overwhelming 72% reported that
they were very motivated to use POC technology due to the ability of auto
generating reports. In addition, three factors were highlighted as key
contributors to the success of POC use, and these were reliable power supply
(44%), adequate and trained healthcare workers (24%), standard and stable
EMR Systems (17%). The study recommended for adequate training of health
care workers, adequate workstations, and reliable power supply. For initial
implementers of EMRs, they should consider having Standard EMRs that
support both clinical decision support features and automated reporting
Description
Article
Keywords
Point-Of-Care Use, Electronic Medical Records (EMR), SocioDemographic Factors, Organisational Factors, Technical Factors
Citation
Muiruri, K., Gitahi, M., Otieno, G., & King’utu, K. (2023). Determinants of Point-of-Care Technology Use among Health Care Workers in Comprehensive Care Centres, A Case of Central Kenya. East African Journal of Information Technology, 6(1), 107-118. https://doi.org/10.37284/eajit.6.1.1330