App enhances nurses' care coordination competency for critically ill patients

To improve the care coordination competency of nurses involved in the management of critically ill patients on life support, an electronic app—NCCCS—was developed by Associate Professor　Chie Takiguchi of Toho University and Professor Tomoko Inoue of International University of Health and Welfare. The NCCCS app utilizes the scoring system referred to as the Nurses’ Care Coordinate Competency Scale (NCCCS), developed by Dr. Takiguchi et al. in 2017, and it is currently being translated into Chinese, Italian, Polish, and Persian. This app offers immediate feedback to nurses caring for critically ill patients on life support based on their self-assessment of the frequency of their care coordination behaviors. The NCCCS app was tested in the study and found to be highly effective in training when used by individuals who had certain years of critical care management experience but had low care coordination competencies. While the significance of care coordination for appropriate critical care is recognized, there is a lack of established educational methods for nurses engaged in care coordination. The quality of care, especially concerning the success or failure of multidisciplinary care for critically ill patients on life support, has been demonstrated to be linked not only to survival rates but also to the development of physical, mental, and cognitive dysfunction in post-intensive care patients. Dr. Takiguchi said, “Our NCCCS app will help nurses enhance their care coordination competencies in the management of critically ill patients. It offers a new strategy to improve the physical, mental, and cognitive outcomes of critically ill patients.” The research findings were published in the Japan Journal of Nursing Science on January 25, 2024.