NFC-based task enactment for automatic documentation of treatment processes

In nursing homes documentation is a mandatory yet time consuming task: typically, nurses document their work after performing the treatments at the end of their shifts which might lead to a decline in the quality of the documentation. The utilization of process-oriented technology in the care domain has already been shown to have high potential in support for documentation of treatment tasks. We want to further this idea, by transforming physical objects into smart objects through equipping them with NFC tags. They can then be used to automatically register their usage with NFC readers specific to care residents. Our analysis shows that many treatment tasks are using care utilities and are candidates for automatic task documentation. We present three scenarios for automatic documentation in nursing homes, an implementation through a proof-of-concept prototype, and an evaluation through expert interviews in the care domain. The interviews indicate an average decrease in documentation time per shift of more than 60%.