Using voice recognition enabled smartwatches to improve nurse documentation

Nurses in inpatient wards devote significant time and effort to documenting patient care. At present, documentation accounts for about 35% of a nurse's shift. Inadequate documentation can impact patient health and institutional liability. To ensure its prompt completion, data entry is often done in front of a patient, with a nurse's gaze fixed to a computer and keyboard. This practice can disrupt patient trust and engagement. The work herein introduces a new paradigm to support nurse data entry, task planning, and notification. The paradigm is to simplify the entry of data into initial placeholders at the point of patient care, for subsequent full completion later, away from the patient. Respectively, a smartwatch application with voice recognition was implemented, as well as a desktop user interface. Items can be added to an electronic checklist, upcoming events scheduled so that notifications are received, and specific notes can be flagged to facilitate shift handoff. Design choices were based on observations, focus groups, and feedback from registered nurses. Accordingly, the applications were evaluated, with simulated patients, by nurses who reported they were easy to learn and not distracting. The use of available features varied by nurse, indicating a degree of individual customizability.