Availability and Utilization of Digital Health Technology for Improved Patients Care: A Cross-Sectional Study of Nurses’ Perspectives at a State General Hospital in North-Central Nigeria

Abstract

Digital health technology (DHT), the application and implementation of the digital transformation strategy in the healthcare system, entails incorporating both software and hardware services to facilitate different health needs. In Nigeria's healthcare system, the utilization of digital health technology has not been fully explored resulting in the lagging behind the delivery of healthcare for digitalized, improved patient care, and nursing practice. This research study was designed to assess knowledge, availability and utilization of digital health technology by nurses at a North-Central Hospital, in Kwara state. A descriptive cross-sectional research design was adopted. The researcher used a Self-developed administered questionnaire to elicit responses from a convenient sample of 125 nurses. The data collected were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics (with a 0.05 level of significance). The study revealed that the majority of the nurses had good knowledge (n= 92; 73.6%) and positive perception (n=90; 72%) about digital health technology with fair adequate utilization (n=74; 59.2%) of the few available digital health technology devices. A significant association was found between the knowledge of nurses about digital health technology and their highest academic qualification with a p-value of 0.022, which is less than a 0.05 level of significance. Also, a significant association was found between the knowledge of nurses and the utilisation of digital health technology with a P value of 0.005. In conclusion, digital health technology knowledge among nurses was good and positive respectively and the level of utilization of digital health technology was adequate. Therefore, hospital administration and nurses need to advocate for improved provision of adequate digital health technologies for health care and practices especially for nursing care. Hospital administration should continue to improve the knowledge of the health workers and continually enhance digital health technology utilisation for improved patient care