The advantages of NCP Electronic in nutrition care documentation at Saiful Anwar Hospital Malang, Indonesia

Abstract

Objectives: Quality of nutrition care can be accomplished by Nutrition Care Process (NCP) and International Dietetics and Nutrition Terminology (IDNT). Lack of access to resources to support easy-to-use documentation is one of the obstacles using NCP and IDNT. Information technology can be used as a tool to record nutrition care and overcome the obstacles of using NCP and IDNT. Health information technology studies often focus on information technology design and implementation without considers end user’s acceptance. Perceived advantage is one of perceived that influences user’s acceptance of information technology. Nutrition Care Process (NCP) Electronic is an application based on computer which is developed to document NCP easily. This application’s trial was conducted in Saiful Anwar Hospital Malang where it has already used NCP. This study aimed to investigate dietitian’s perceived advantages of NCP Electronic Methods: This was a qualitative study in which the design was an exploration case study. The number of informants was 8 dietitians. The data were collected through in-depth interviews and observations. Results: The dietitians considered that NCP Electronic has some advantages. The advantages were grouped by three aspects. There were data processing and documentation nutrition care, nutrition care document storage and dietitians’ job performance. The first advantage of using NCP Electronic was easier and faster to record nutrition care. Secondly, in document storage’s aspect, nutrition care could be recorded automatically because it could be saved in a storage device so that it would minimize the data loss. In job performance’s aspect, NCP Electronic could reduce the dietitians’ workload. They would not be tired to write, and also in terms of performance, dietitians felt using NCP Electronic improved dietitian’s image. Conclusion: NCP Electronic was more advantageous for dietitians than nutrition care manual documentation. The advantages were easiness and swiftness in processing the data and documenting nutrition care, nutrition care automatic record, reducing dietitians’ workload, in terms of performance dietitian felt using NCP Electronic improved dietitian’s image.