JAMIA: End-user experience a must for bar-code med admin usage

End-user acceptance is critical for the success of bar coded medication administration (BCMA) and other technologies, according to an article published June 3 in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.

Richard J. Holden, PhD, from the Center for Research and Innovation in Systems Safety at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tenn., and colleagues sought to identify predictors of nurses' acceptance of BCMA.

The researchers surveyed 83 nurses at an academic pediatric hospital that recently implemented BCMA assessing perceptions including ease of use, usefulness for the job, social influence from non-specific others to use BCMA, training, technical support, usefulness for patient care and social influence from patients/families.

Nurses reported a moderate perceived ease of use and low perceived usefulness of BCMA, according to the researchers. “Nurses perceived moderate-or-higher social influence to use BCMA and had moderately positive perceptions of BCMA-related training and technical support.”

Behavioral intention to use BCMA was high, but satisfaction was low, they added. Behavioral intention to use was best predicted by perceived ease of use, perceived social influence from non-specific others and perceived usefulness for patient care (56 percent of variance explained).

User satisfaction was best predicted by perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness for patient care and perceived social influence from patients/families (76 percent of variance explained).

“Variation in and low scores on ease of use and usefulness are concerning, especially as these variables often correlate with acceptance, as found in this study,” the authors wrote. “Predicting acceptance benefited from using a broad set of perceptions and adapting variables to the healthcare context.”

However, the authors noted may not be generalize beyond the nurses at their particular and the result may not generalize beyond the particular vendor’s BCMA. 

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