Abstract
Background: Past research provides good evidence that having a competency assessment on an annual basis can improve the clinician's quality, safety, and confidence. Competency documentation, however, is not cost-effective and can consume a huge amount of administrative time in preparing and storing it. Furthermore, it is hard to keep all paper records for all staff in a secured area and higher risk of missing staff competency. Implementing digital solutions to replace paper filing can increase efficiency, better data access, accountability, and reliable backups. The study evaluates the perception of usability and satisfaction of developed competency documentation using the digital application that replaced paper-based records in the RT department.
Methods: To improve efficiency and ensure safekeeping, the RT department at JurongHealth Campus, Singapore, initiated the transition from paper-based competency documentation to digital competency documentation in November 2022. A questionnaire was conducted to the RTs on the transition to digital competency form using the technology model assessment (TMA) format six months post-transition in April 2023. Each item in the questionnaire used a 7-point Likert scale for item scoring the RTs' perception of digitalized competency. In total, 20 RTs answered the questionnaire. This study and TMA questionnaire are part of major research and approved by the Institution Review Board (NHG DSRB 2020/01138).
Results: The initiative of digitalized competency has helped the department have an estimated savings of ~800 papers for each RT per year. 100% of RTs reported (agree and strongly agree) that they could readily access materials and competency checklists; 90% agreed that there is easy access to track completed competencies. 65% decided that the new initiative improves document filing and prevents data loss. However, (n = 7, 35%) RTs were concerned about PDPA/IT issues due to recent cases of malware attacks in other countries/servers. Factor analysis was performed on the questionnaire, and two themes emerged, with 72.84% of variances explained. Cronbach’s alpha was used for internal consistency assessment, and Cronbach’s alpha shows 0.872 for the theme Acceptance of digitalized solution and 0.801 for the theme worries of PDPA/IT.
Conclusions: It is essential to have digitalized solutions in healthcare settings, as it ensures higher security in safeguard sensitive information, creating efficiency, on-the-go resources and creating a green environment at the workplace.
Figure 1: Themes created based on eigenvalues >1 from factor analysis with n=20 and variances explained 72.84%
Figure 2: Breakdown of the questions based on the theme “Acceptance of digitalised competency" and "Worries of PDPA/IT issues”
Footnotes
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