Improving Nurses Wound Care Knowledge Utilizing an App

Abstract

Practice Problem: Nurses needed additional wound care support, but formal training was not in the budget at this time. Nurses needed a quick reference guide to help them assess, document, and treat wounds correctly until the hospital could provide adequate training. PICOT: The PICOT question that guided this project is; “When treating wound care patients within a hospital setting (P), how does the implementation of a wound software app. (I) as compared to pre-existing nursing knowledge (C) increase a nurse’s self-reported ability to accurately assess and treat wounds (O) during a 10-week period? (T)” Evidence: Based on a thorough and rigorous review of the synthesized recommendations currently available, a wound software app has the capability of helping the nurses in the hospital who self-identified as having limited wound knowledge. The strength of the body of evidence is extensive, as evidenced by the quality, quantity, and consistency of the studies. Intervention: The intervention used an educational software phone application (app) to assist nurses in referencing information pertaining to wounds. The nurses self-reported their confidence level via a baseline survey and then this data will be compared to a post survey that analyzed their confidence level after utilizing the wound software app. during a 10-week period pre and post-intervention. Outcome: All participants (100%) indicated that they (a) felt comfortable using a wound app on phones or tablets, (b) would like to learn and participate in a training on a wound phone or tablet app, and (c) were interested in using a wound phone or tablet app for wound assessment, documentation, and treatment options. The two-tailed Wilcoxon signed rank test showed significant results based on an alpha value of .05, V = 0.00, z = -2.23, p = .026. Conclusion: In an organization where staff nurses are having difficulty merely understanding the basics of wounds, being able to have a reference guide can prove to be beneficial. Hospital administrators may save on wound related costs