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MU MDS and Quality Research team is evaluating the use of electronic bedside patient record keeping and its effect on nursing home quality improvement programs. This project, a cooperative venture between Rantz and her team, OneTouch Technologies, and the Research Triangle Institute will put palm-pilots in the hands of nursing staff in hopes that electronic bedside record-keeping will increase reporting accuracy, facilitate collection of MDS data, reduce patients care costs, and improve care. Rantz and her team believe that transferring patient records to the dimension of “real” electronic time will eliminate the duplication, multiple interpretations, and misinformation of traditional, hand-written patient records and provide “real,” verifiable results in patient care via improvements in MDS data collection and use. The first phase of this study involves the use of these recording devices in a small, representative sample of Missouri nursing homes in order to document whatever improvements in patient care can be identified from MDS QI data. In line with the successful QIPMO program, expert gerontological nurses will help the facilities plan changes in clinical care designed to improve the quality of nursing care as evidenced by the quarterly MDS QI data reports.
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