A Digital Alert Feedback System (Aged Care Electronic Dashboard Information Tool, ACED-IT) to Enhance Quality Nursing Care: Participatory Action Research

Aims: Develop and simulate test a digital alert dashboard drawing from existing data to support nurses, care workers and managers in residential aged care. Design: Participatory action research, co-designing for an Australian 64-bed residential site. Methods: Qualitative data were collected through focus groups and analysed using reflective thematic analysis. Results: Nursing-theory and evidence-based Nursing Data Domain Standards (NDDS) were developed to support internal triaging of fundamental and clinical care in a non-clinical environment. A co-designed retrospective digital alert dashboard (Aged Care Electronic Dashboard Information Tool—ACED-IT) representing the Standards was created and tested. Twenty aged care nurses, care workers and managers found it had promise in enhancing quality of care, improving resident health and reducing adverse events. Conclusions: Maximising efficient use of resident-level data with a system that empowers nurse decision-makers is crucial to support effective care design and harm prevention. Implications for the Profession and/or Patient Care: ACED-IT has the potential to improve visibility of resident needs, support staff to adjust their workflow based on in-house triage, enhance supervision of staff and quality of care and reduce preventable complications. Impact: Digital systems that enable nursing care escalation and triaging for early intervention are needed in residential aged care settings. The co-designed system was perceived by registered nurses, care workers and managers to have the potential to improve care quality and efficiency. Using an evidence-informed nursing framework to identify day-to-day care indicators can be widely implemented by government regulators, software providers and residential care providers on an international scale to improve resident experience. Reporting Method: This study adhered to the relevant EQUATOR guidelines, specifically the COREQ (Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research) Checklist. Patient or Public Contribution: A member of the public participated in the Advisory Group, observed and contributed to the co-design process and reviewed the manuscript.