Portable Rx
Sarah Ngugi
Background
It’s hard for nurses to keep up with patient information
when they have many patients and know them
superficially. In addition, they may not know what their
patients look like; instead, their patients are reduced to a
Ziploc bag with a name written as neatly as possible in
sharpie. Nurses responsible for big groups such as
children’s camps need an effective way to organize and
dispense medicine while keeping track of their ever-
changing patients. Associate Professor at Kent State
College of Nursing, Tamra J. Courey, reveals growing
concerns as camp nurses are ill-equipped to deal with the
increasing number of children with mental health issues.
The issue at hand, however, goes beyond mental Issues.
Studies show that there is a strong need for improved
communication between parents, primary health care
providers, and the personnel directing the camps to
ensure an accurate dispensation and handling of
medications. Furthermore, there is limited conversation
covering the issue as it is not perceived as a priority.
Issues such as these can have serious implications, yet
the solution is simple.
Objectives
• Create a flexible database that effectively organizes any
necessary patient information
• Design a programmed alarm for medication/patient
alerts to be used in the app
• Create a corresponding patient medication organizer
Materials
● Excel
● AppSheet
● Data Collection Sheet
Method(s)
1. Create an excel spreadsheet with 4 separate and unique
patients
2. Input fake patient information into the spreadsheet
3. Create an Appsheet
4. Transfer patient information into AppSheet
5. Ideate and input camp resources into Appsheet
6. Customize app by adding different views (I.e. , gallery
view)
7. Add a calendar
8. Add an alarm
9. Deploy the app
10.Create a medication organizer
Results continued Conclusion
I believe that a database to organize patient information for
nurses with changing patients is a viable and effective
option. My project was successful; however, it also failed in
certain aspects. I encountered issues with AppSheet’s
ability to support an in-app alarm clock; therefore, I was
unable to express that feature in my app. In addition, the
app is lacking in flexibility and the information cannot be
updated or changed by any user except for admin. A
necessary next step would be finding a viable way to
change the database information preferably by filtering
information from a larger database ( i.e. , from the camp
organization). While my app expresses several areas for
improvement, it effectively captures most of the necessary
elements of the desired app. All patient information,
Figure 1 – Initial ideated design
including pictures, can be accessed on the main page, and
camp resources, including nearby hospital information, can
be found on the main page as well. When searching for a
specific patient, the user can look up the patient in the
Figure 3 – Example Patient File search bar to easily access their file. Overall, my project had
many areas for improvement and many areas of prosperity.
Results
If the problems can be managed, then I believe that this
project will be a sure method of organization for nurses in
ever-changing environments.
Material and Methods
References
Courey, Tamra J. “Mental Health Needs of Children and
Adolescents at Camp: Are They Being Assessed and
Treated Appropriately by the Camp Nurse?” Journal of
Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing, vol. 19, no. 4, 20
Figure 2 – Main page of the app Nov. 2006, doi:10.1111/jcap.2006.19.issue-4
Rosenbloom, T. S., Weinburg, S., Holland, J., &
Kaufman, L. (2016, December 16). Medical record keeping
in the summer camp setting. PubMed Central
(PMC). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC522
8149/