Authors (including presenting author) :
Tse CY(1), Suen HN(1)
Affiliation :
(1)Department of Psychiatry, Tai Po Hospital
Keyword 1: :
Digital Ward Place
Keyword 3: :
Clinical Risk Mitigation
Keyword 4: :
Bed Utilization
Keyword 5: :
Nursing Informatics
Keyword 6: :
Co-Development
Introduction :
A clear identification and visualization of bed status and functional statistics are crucial for efficient operations and safe clinical handovers in psychiatric inpatient settings. Manual errors and time-consuming data entry on handwritten documents can lead to risky communication, judgement errors, treatment delays, and labor-intensive work. To enhance risk mitigation and streamline data workflows, the Department of Psychiatry at Tai Po Hospital has initiated a nurse-led e-Platform to address these challenges and aims for a co-development a psy specific module of Digital Ward Place for psychiatric end-users.
Objectives :
1.Streamline admission/transfer-in workflow
2.Enhance data consistency via single-point entry
3.Strengthen closed-loop communication
4.Facilitate management decision
Methodology :
The e-Platform was launched in June 2024 (Phase I) and extended in April 2025 (Phase II) across all psychiatric wards in three hospitals in NTEC. It facilitates One-Stop workflow for data input and retrieval via a secured corporate system in psychiatric ward, data could be synchronized seamlessly as following key features: 1) Real-time bed utilization overview by cubicles display. 2) Color-coded risk alerts for patient safety (e.g., fall, infection, violence, suicide, vulnerability). 3) Ward functional statistics on bed occupancy and risk alerts 4) Legal Form due-date reminders. All data is centralized, accessible 24/7 in real time to all relevant professionals via handheld devices or dashboard inside secured staff duty zone, supporting daily operations and shift-handovers with fostering closed-loop communication. An added-value feature aids nurse managers in timely staff deployment and risk mitigation. Clinical data can be easily accessed by senior management for statistical analysis and resources allocation.
Result & Outcome :
A satisfaction survey of 105 clinical staff, including ward nurses, doctors, and allied health professionals, revealed strong support for the initiatives: 85.7% agreed it enhances patient safety by improving date accuracy; 95.2% noted reduced workload from manual input and redundant checking; 92.3% valued real-time bed status optimizes bed utilization; 100% of nurse managers supported its importance in management decision-making. For workflow efficiency, a significant time reduction in patient data entry was noted. Compared to conventional handwriting, approximately 17 minutes per patient was saved during admission, transfer, discharge and case review, which help frontline nurses save an average of 34 to 45 minutes per day in ward, based on 60 to 80 patient admissions per month from April to June 2025. The co-development of the e-Platform by frontline users has proven to be an effective approach for success, enhancing both patient and nurse safety and outcomes in psychiatric wards by streamlining workflows, improving data accuracy, fostering closed-loop communication and efficiency among teams, and foster resource allocation by clinical data analysis. The initiative was supported by senior management at NTEC. The Proposed Enhancement on Co-Development of a Psy Specific Module of Digital Ward Place for Psychiatric end-users and approved by SAG (P&MH) in Dec 2025 and COC (Psy) in Feb 2026 as scheduled. Corporate taskforce was established for further discussions with support from HOIT team.
