Navigational Needs and Preferences of Hospital Patients and Visitors: What Prospects for Smart Technologies?

Implementation of a navigation system: Economic verification in a local hospital

Healthcare, like other industries, is increasingly using smart technologies, which also include intelligent/smart wayfinding navigation. The focus of this article, as part of the research project (its second step), was to analyze the economic effectiveness of the introduction of the wayfinding system in a local hospital in the Czech Republic. In the first phase/step of the project, possible variants of the solution were identified, verification of possible functioning, and a questionnaire survey was conducted among employees and patients regarding the waste of time in search of destination and preferences of various forms of navigation. Based on the above, it was decided to develop our own mobile application. To determine the effectiveness of this method of implementation of the new system, economic verification was used by the cost-benefit analysis method. Although the use of this method has not been required in the implementation of funded projects within the European Union since 2021, it was chosen for clarifying the pros and cons in many both investment and non-investment projects. In addition to the net present value calculation, the benefit cost ratio, profitability index, and payback period were used for evaluation. The time saving of medical staff, calculated on the basis of a questionnaire survey in the hospital (the first step of the project), was used as a benefit. The costs used were the salaries paid out in the research project, the investment, and the operating costs over the lifetime of the navigation system, which is estimated at eleven years. Using the above indicators, the implementation of the navigation system was found to be effective, despite the initial high costs. Based on these results, as part of the third step of the project, the navigation system will be implemented in the given hospital-the testing phase was taking place in the last quarter of 2021, and the full implementation is expected during the 2022.

A bibliometric analysis of published literature on healthcare facilities' wayfinding research from 1974 to 2020

Objectives

Wayfinding in complex environments is a public issue facing the world and has become a hot research topic in recent years. This article reviews and quantitatively analyzes the literature on wayfinding in healthcare facilities and collates the research trends and hotspots in this area.

Methods

The article used bibliometric analysis to search keywords in the Scopus database in the TITLE-ABS-KEY format. In total, 2359 articles were finally collated between 1974 and 2020 after three screening exercises, and a co-citation analysis was conducted by VOSviewer literature visualization analysis software.

Results

Research in the worldwide literature on wayfinding in healthcare facilities has grown steadily year on year since 2002. Computer science (21.5%) and social science (15.5%) are the most common subject categories, with the United States (N = 767) accounting for the largest proportion of research. “Lecture Notes In Computer Science Including Subseries Lecture Notes In Artificial Intelligence And Lecture Notes In Bioinformatics” is the most active journal in terms of publications (N = 169).

Conclusion

Wayfinding cognition, wayfinding behavior, and individual and group differences are currently the focus of research in the field of healthcare facilities. Future research on wayfinding in healthcare facilities will further investigate intelligent assistive technologies and universal designs such as universal signage systems. In addition, cross-cultural-based wayfinding research is a hot topic for future studies where the boundaries of research are broadened and have practical value.

Determinants of the behavioral intention to use a mobile nursing application by nurses in China

BACKGROUND

Although a mobile nursing application has began to adopt in nursing, few studies have focused on nurses' behavioral intention of it. The objective of this study is to gain insight into the behavioral intention of nurses, i.e. chinese nurses of the future, to use a mobile nursing application. This study adopted an extension of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology to examine Chinese nurses' acceptance of a mobile nursing application.

METHODS

A total of 1207 nurses participated in the cross-sectional survey. The majority of nurses were female (96.2%). The mean age of the participants was 34.18 (SD 7.39). The hypothesized relationships were tested using AMOS structural equation model.

RESULTS

All constructs exhibited an acceptable level of reliability and validity with Cα and CR > 0.7 and AVE > 0.5. An extension of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology Model had good explanatory power for nurses' behavioral intention of a mobile nursing application. Although effort expectancy and perceived risks had a surprisingly insignificant effect on nurses' behavioral intention to use a mobile nursing application, performance expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, self-efficacy, and perceived incentives demonstrated significant influence with β = .259, p < .001, β = .296, p < .001, β = .063, p = .037, β = .344, p < .001, β = .091, p = .001, respectively.

CONCLUSION

With 70.2% of the variance in behavioral intention to use a mobile nursing app explained by this model, it could be helpful for potential adopters, and further investigation should test the actual usage behavior for a mobile nursing app and investigate the related factors.