Using Interactive Patient Engagement Technology in Clinical Practice: A Qualitative Assessment of Nurses’ Perceptions

BACKGROUND: Research has shown patients who are more engaged in their care are likely to have better health outcomes and reduced health care costs. Health care organizations are now focusing their efforts in finding ways to improve patient engagement. At the forefront of this movement are patient engagement technology systems. In this paper, these emerging systems are described as interactive patient engagement technologies (iPET). OBJECTIVE: The objective of this descriptive study was to gain an understanding of the perceptions of nurses who are integrating these iPET systems into their daily clinical practice. METHODS: The research team interviewed 38 nurses from 2 California-based hospitals using a focused rapid ethnographic evaluation methodology to gather data. RESULTS: The study participants reported that using iPET systems may enhance clinical nursing practice. The 4 key findings of iPET were that it (1) is effective for distraction therapy, (2) has functionality that affects both patients and nurses, (3) has implications for clinical practice, and (4) may require additional training to improve usage. CONCLUSIONS: With sufficient training on the iPET system, nurses believed they could use these technologies as an enhancement to their clinical practice. Additionally, nurses perceived these systems served as distraction therapy for patients. Initial findings suggest that iPET is beneficial, but more research is required to examine the usefulness of iPET systems in the inpatient settings.