Technology in palliative care: steering a new direction or accidental drift?

Tinnelly, Karen; Kristjanson, Linda J.; McCallion, Aine; Cousins, Kerry

doi:10.12968/ijpn.2000.6.10.9049

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 18 publications

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“…Traditional care of the dying patient has been underpinned by a low-technology philosophy including an emphasis on the need of 'being with' the dying patient [26]. However, technological advances have influenced the care of terminally ill patients in home care, leading to the possibility of remotely monitoring patients in their homes [27,28], but the attitude towards the use of technology in palliative care in general varies among caregivers and can include suspicion towards highly technical interventions [26]. Digital pen technology, although belonging to the high-technology area, has more of a lowtechnology approach, since the use of a pen and paper is familiar to everyone, and digital pens have have some similarity to ordinary pens.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Digital pens and pain diaries in palliative home health care: Professional caregivers' experiences

Lind

Karlsson

Fridlund

2007

Medical Informatics and the Internet in Medicine

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Frequent pain assessment by the use of pain diaries for the follow-up of pain treatment can facilitate the caregivers' work with pain control in home health care. The aim was to explore and describe professional caregivers' experiences of palliative home health-care patients' use of pain diaries and digital pen technology for frequent pain assessment. A system for the follow-up of pain treatment was implemented in routine care and evaluated by means of a qualitative content analysis. Three nurses, two physicians and one secretary were interviewed. Additional analysis data were collected from patients' medical records, and the system log. The caregivers showed a shifting outlook towards the pain-assessment method, an initial cautious outlook due to low expectations of the patients' abilities to use the pain assessment method. Despite this, the caregivers experienced positive outcomes in terms of an increased awareness of pain, and positive patient influences including increased participation in their care, increased security, and improved changes in pain treatment as a response to reported pain assessments. Pain assessment by the use of pain diaries and digital pen technology has positive influences on palliative home-care patients and supports the caregivers' focus on the pain.

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