The microcomputer: an aid to paediatric parenteral nutrition

Abstract

Approximately 50% of the pharmacy man-hours committed to providing a parenteral nutrition service at the Children's Hospital, Birmingham were spent in calculations, form filling and record keeping. An increasing demand for the service, with no extra staff available, meant that the service had to be made more efficient. A 90% time saving was achieved by using a microcomputer to free the pharmacy staff from many of the laborious mathematical and clerical chores. The program was developed by a member of the nutritional care team; this meant that it was designed with the specific needs of the service in mind. In addition the detail and accuracy of patient data recording have been greatly improved.

A Survey of Neonatal Parenteral Nutrition Design Practices in North Carolina

“…Ball's initial report showed that about half the time allocated to neonatal parenteral nutrition was spent completing forms, performing manual computations, and record-keeping. 33 They later described their neonatal parenteral nutrition design system, which integrated the patient's condition, laboratory findings, and enteral feedings. 34 Similarly, Harper et al 35 developed a system in BASIC that executed on an Apple II Plus computer that integrated safety limits, recorded the patient's parenteral nutrition content and produced a systematic, consistent, legible parenteral nutrition order sheet.…”