2: Needs Assessment

Needs that Justify Computer Engineering Problem-Solving Effort

The needs of many different domains motivate the problem-solving efforts in electrical and computer engineering, especially today. Electrical and computer engineering efforts span from the need for energy efficiency to address environmental concerns and ensure sustainability to the need for reliable and fast communication systems to support modern interconnected societies. However, the most imperative aspect that applies to every industry is establishing automation to improve productivity and precision in industries.

There is an urgent need for transportation innovations that will increase safety and efficiency, strong security solutions that will protect privacy and prevent cyberattacks, and advances in healthcare technology that will improve patient care. The need for accessibility propels the creation of technologies that empower people with disabilities, and the development of infrastructure necessitates dependable power, communication, and transportation networks in order to sustain economic expansion.

Design Proposal Justifying Technical Solution

i. Objective

A vital procedure in the nursing profession, known as SBAR (or Situation, Background, Assessment, and Recommendation), is a communication framework done before and after every nurse’s shift to provide the next nursing team with important information about a patient and their condition. Its implementation allows for a short and organized flow of information by eliminating superfluous information, and it provides a standardized process used by nurses worldwide. 

However, in practice, the SBAR documentation is a time-consuming and cumbersome process as it is all done on paper that is not standardized among hospitals.  In this study alone, 24% of nurses consider the SBAR documentation time consuming: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5123547/. 

In addition, having patient information written on paper that is being passed around the nursing staff escalates the risk of potential HIPAA violations. This not only affects every patient in hospitals internationally, but all nurses as even accidental HIPAA violations (i.e. misplacing SBAR documentation) can result in the loss of their job, their license, and serious fines (https://www.healthecareers.com/nurse-resources/nurse-career/hipaa-violations-a-great-way-to-destroy-your-nursing-career) Therefore, our team objective is to create an application that nurses can use that digitizes the paper SBAR system to streamline the process, save time, and make it more secure. 

ii. Background

Nursing is one of the most important and demanding jobs in the world. Nurses are responsible for direct patient care, patient assessment, and documentation for as many as 7 patients per shift. They care for their patients at the deepest level, even more in depth than physicians, and for longer hours and lower wages. 

The strain of nurses' jobs and underappreciation has been particularly highlighted after the COVID-19 pandemic. This article highlights the correlation between nurses' work conditions and mental health decline: https://www.nursingcenter.com/ncblog/september-2022/nurses-mental-health.  

Nurses’ time is incredibly valuable, and anything that can be done to alleviate their workload and save them time will help them and their patients. In addition, any individual seeking medical care is under the protection of HIPAA and as a result of this application, we can potentially affect thousands by reducing the risk of HIPAA violations.

iii. Methodology

Our application shall primarily employ a log-in system to ensure only authorized personnel shall be able to access the information stored, which shall be implemented through an SQL database. This shall protect patients from potential HIPAA violations. Furthermore, we shall program prompts that nurses can follow to input all the information they would normally have to write by hand, using Java or some other backend language. Then, all of this information shall be stored in another database, so that it can be saved for nurses to access at the beginning and end of their shifts. By saving this information, a patients’ medical history during their stay in the hospital shall be more comprehensive than a chart is. To make the site intuitive and easy to adapt to from analog documentation, we shall use HTML and CSS languages to construct an accessible front end. After testing our prototype and ensuring all the aspects are functioning, we shall slowly begin to implement our applications at different hospitals. 

iv. Expected Results

1. Allow nurses to keep more comprehensive and informative assessments on patients.

2. Streamline communication between nursing shift changes.

3. Standardize the SBAR curriculum to be the same nationally.

4. Allow nurses to share patient information efficiently with less risk of HIPAA violations.

5. Reduce time spent on patient assessments through a user-friendly survey instead of writing notes down individually. 

6. Keep patient assessments secure through a secure login page only accessible through hospital credentials that have been granted access to patient information.

v. Costs

• $10 per month for domain name

• $10 per month for server hosting service