A Qualitative Exploration of Hospital Staff Experiences With Automated Nutrition Delivery
Joanne Roman Jones, Elizabeth Myer, Abigail S. Shapiro, Julee Snyder, Adelaide M. Gordon, Ryan C. Crossgrove, Jennifer M. GierischBackground
Automated nutrition delivery presents as a potential innovation with significant impact on both healthcare professional workloads and patient care quality and safety in hospital settings.
Objectives
To explore hospital staff perspectives on, and experiences with, automated nutrition delivery innovations within our institution.
Design
We designed and conducted a qualitative, quality improvement study.
Methods
This project employed one-time semi-structured qualitative individual interviews with 12 hospital staff across 4 health care systems within the Veterans Health Administration. Rapid qualitative analysis methods reduced the data into themes. The study was developed and reported in adherence to the Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellent (SQUIRE) 2.0 Guidelines and the Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research (SRQR).
Results
We identified four themes reflecting hospital staff’s perceptions of automated nutrition delivery innovations in their hospital: (1) Making the Case: Why Automate Nutrition Support? (2) Implementation Facilitators and Barriers: What Helps or Hinders the Implementation of Automation of Nutrition Delivery? (3) Outcomes: What Happens After Implementing Automation of Nutrition Delivery? and (4) Staff Satisfaction: What Are Staff Perceptions?
Conclusion
Our findings underscore the common implementation barriers and facilitators involved in automated nutrition delivery innovations in hospitals. Further, perceptions of the perceived impact on staff workload differed across hospital roles. Yet most informants reported minimal impacts to their workload after the implementation start-up phase. Overall, staff expressed positive impressions of how automated nutrition delivery innovations can improve patient care and safety and staff satisfaction. Results add to literature exploring perspectives and experiences with automated nutrition delivery innovations. These innovations were viewed as essential to delivering high quality care to hospitalized patients.