Abstract
Background Although information and communication technologies (ICT) are becoming more common
among health care providers, there is little evidence on how ICT can support health
care aides. Health care aides, also known as personal care workers, are unlicensed
service providers who encompass the second largest workforce, next to nurses, that
provide care to older adults in Canada.
Objective The purpose of this literature review is to examine the range and extent of barriers
and benefits of ICT used by health care workers to manage and coordinate the care-delivery
workflow for their clients.
Methods We conducted a literature review to examine the range and extent of ICT used by health
care aides to manage and coordinate their care delivery, workflow, and activities.
We identified 8,958 studies of which 40 were included for descriptive analyses.
Results We distinguished the following five different purposes for the use and implementation
of ICT by health care aides: (1) improve everyday work, (2) access electronic health
records for home care, (3) facilitate client assessment and care planning, (4) enhance
communication, and (5) provide care remotely. We identified 128 barriers and 130 benefits
related to adopting ICT. Most of the barriers referred to incomplete hardware and
software features, time-consuming ICT adoption, heavy or increased workloads, perceived
lack of usefulness of ICT, cost or budget restrictions, security and privacy concerns,
and lack of integration with technologies. The benefits for health care aides' adoption
of ICT were improvements in communication, support to workflows and processes, improvements
in resource planning and health care aides' services, and improvements in access to
information and documentation.
Conclusion Health care aides are an essential part of the health care system. They provide one-on-one
care to their clients in everyday tasks. Despite the scarce information related to
health care aides, we identified many benefits of ICT adoption.
Keywords
information technology - delivery of health care - health personnel - workflow - aged
