Core nursing process improvement enabled by wireless services Antti Alasalmi 1*) , Olli Martikainen 1,2) , Tomohiro Kuroda 3) , Tadamasa Takemura 4) , Naoto Kume 4) , Hiroyuki Yoshihara 4) , Tsuyoshi Nagashima 5) , and Naoki Oboshi 6) 1) Department of Information Processing Science, University of Oulu, Finland 2) The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy (ETLA), Finland 3) Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka University, Japan 4) Department of Medical Informatics, Kyoto University Hospital, Japan 5) Graduate School of Information Science, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Japan 6) School of Science and Engineering, Kinki University, Japan *) Corresponding author, e-mail: antti.alasalmi@oulu.fi Abstract— The research by Maliranta and Rouvinen based on the Finnish industrial statistics confirms that the productivity improvements in firms correlate to organizational and process changes [12], [13]. These results implied a further question: Which types of process changes create the most beneficial productivity improvements in different environments. This question should be of major importance when new services are applied or developed. The research on process improvements has been done in ETLA and in the University of Oulu, where the Three Viewpoint Methodology (3VPM) [14] was developed for productivity analysis. In this paper we apply the 3VPM methodology to analyze the nursing documentation process and the impact of documentation process improvement by wireless services on core nursing process in Kyoto University Hospital. The information was collected by interviews and server logs. We have analyzed the benefit of in 1 troducing wireless PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) devices to update patient data on place instead of writing it down by hand and later storing it into the system on PC (Personal Computer) and consider other possible solutions like sensors, wireless tracking and touch by device paradigm. Nursing documentation process can be clearly improved and the improvement of the nursing process can be as much as 14%. This means that the same patient intensity can be achieved with less number of nurses. Index Terms—Wireless services, Process change, Hospital work process, Nursing data documentation, Process improvement, Productivity I. INTRODUCTION The productivity increase results from Information and Communication technologies (ICT) in the society are of rather recent origin. Contrary to what was believed in the midst of the “new economy” boom, the increasing use of ICT is primarily a corporate event, and overall restructuring has had a rather marginal impact on the aggregate ICT intensity. The excess This work was supported by Ekahau Ltd., Kyoto University, Ubilife project from University of Oulu, and SmarTop project from University of Jyväskylä. These projects have been supported by the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation (Tekes) and several firms. productivity of ICT-equipped labor ranges from eight to eighteen percent [12]. The effect is manifold in younger firms and in ICT-providing branches. The productivity improve- ments can be calculated with respect to internal communication (LAN as proxy), external communication (internet as proxy) and IT (computers as proxy) investments (see Fig. 1). The findings with respect to firm age are consistent with the need of ICT-complementing organizational changes. The findings on ICT-providing branches are not determined by communications equipment industry but rather by ICT services. Overall, the ICT-induced excess productivity seems to be somewhat higher in services than in manufacturing. -40 % -20 % 0 % 20 % 40 % 60 % Computers Internet LAN Services Old Middle Young Fig. 1. Productivity improvements based on ICT investments in Finnish service firms. The firms are divided into three age classes [12]. In their further research Maliranta and Rouvinen [13] study productivity effects of portability as well as wired and wireless connectivity using Finnish ICT firm-level data. It was found that a computer with processing and storage capabilities boosted labor productivity by 9 % (corresponding to 5 % output elasticity), with portability by 32 %, with wired connectivity by 14 %, and with wireless connectivity by 6 %. These findings are in line with previous source data, and comparisons to ICT costs suggest that firms equate marginal costs and returns. While increasing ICT employment can no longer be a major source of productivity growth in developed economies, the studied process changes can. 978-1-4244-2829-8/08/$25.00 ©2008 IEEE