DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A COMPUTER BASED DUTY ROASTER GENERATION SYSTEM FOR NURSES (CASE STUDY OF PARK LANE HOSPITAL, ENUGU)

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Computer based duty roaster generation system for nurses is used by the hospital to create, process and record their duty roaster information. This system is used to calculate the nurse punctuate to work. It is an effective tool in the hand of the hospital management. Duty (from “due,” that which is owing, O. Fr. deu, did, past participle of devoir; Lat. debere, debitum; cf. “debt”) is a term that conveys a sense of moral commitment to someone or something. The moral commitment is the sort that results in action, and it is not a matter of passive feeling or mere recognition. When someone recognizes a duty, that person commits himself/herself to the cause involved without considering the self-interested courses of actions that may have been relevant previously. This is not to suggest that living a life of duty precludes one from the best sort of life, but duty does involve some sacrifice of immediate self-interest. Cicero is an early philosopher who acknowledged this possibility. He discusses duty in his work “On Duty.” He suggests that duties can come from four different sources: It is a result of being human It is a result of one’s particular place in life (your family, your country, your job) It is a result of one’s personality One’s own moral expectations for yourself can generate duties From the root idea of obligation to serve or give something in return, involved in the conception of duty, have sprung various derivative uses of the word; thus it is used of the services performed by a minister of a church, by a soldier, or by any employee or servant. Nurses today have a broad scope of responsibility as health care providers that requires them, under some circumstances, to exercise independent professional judgment. When nurses exercise their judgment negligently, they may be held liable because courts hold them to a correspondingly higher level of accountability. Nurses have been held liable for their failure to monitor and/or promptly respond to patients by informing physicians of significant changes in patients’ conditions. Under these types of circumstances, nurses have an affirmative duty to exercise their professional judgment to ensure that all adequate steps are taken to treat patients appropriately.

Usage of Information Technology (IT) remained comparatively very less in Health sector than other sectors despite having more potential. Health Institutions, which is important sector, should encourage IT usage resulting better productivity, effectiveness, efficiency and economics leading to better health care to all. This paper tells a success story of implementation of ICT in monitoring of medicine in health Institutions. System works on low-end resources and E-mail based data transfer from District Hard Quarter to State Head Quarter. Implementation of Med-Centre in all the districts of Enugu results in check on pilferage of medicine, increase in availability of medicine at Government Institution, increase in attendance of patient/doctors in health institution, optimal utilization of medicine and data capturing at source, resulting in availability of error-free data at State Head quarter