An intelligent performance assessment system for enhancing the service quality of home care nursing staff in the healthcare industry

Abstract

Due to the aging population in Hong Kong, the need for home care service is growing rapidly and requires nursing staff to frequently visit the homes of the elderly for service. For years, a shortage of qualified nursing staff and the tight service schedule has brought increasing pressure to the existing home care service, sometimes leading to high complaint rates by the elderly and their family members. In order to maintain the home care service quality, it is critical to have an evaluation approach by assessing the workload and characteristics of the home care nursing staff. In this paper, an intelligent performance assessment system (IPAS) is designed to evaluate the performance of home care nursing staff in the healthcare industry. IPAS integrates Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) for the collecting and storing of data on the elderly patient, nursing staff and healthcare agency when providing home care services, and fuzzy logic for evaluating the service quality of the nursing staff. The healthcare agency can then formulate a follow up plan based on the assessment results. By conducting a pilot study in a local healthcare agency, the nursing staff loyalty can be increased while the quality of home care service can be enhanced.