School of Nursing: Connections

Entrepreneurial alum authors revolutionary nursing software

“Point of Care Ware” software developed by Lynette Jones ’97 Ph.D.

When Lynette Jones ’97 Ph.D., was a nursing student doing research in the health sciences library, she discovered a data dictionary for naming and quantifying what nurses do. It occurred to her that, by combining this "nursing intervention language" with epidemiology and biostatistical techniques, technology could provide a method for evaluating nursing services and their contribution to patient or client outcomes. That flash of insight became the foundation for Jones’ doctoral dissertation and, two years after graduation, she launched the Point of Care Ware software company, which she now heads.

Offering innovative software programs that nurses can carry around with them in tiny hand-held computers that resemble pocket calculators with large screens, Point of Care Ware was also born out of Jones’ experience as an RN working in direct patient care and in health care administration. Point of Care Ware’s primary focus is in the post-acute care market, including home health care and skilled nursing and assisted living facilities and retirement homes. But it also promises to be a model for other forms of health care involving multiple providers or multiple health-related services over a lifetime. In addition to offering an electronic health record for hundreds of patients in a handheld device, the software tracks outcomes and the daily cost of providing care in labor, supplies and medication.

Jones feels such technology will be a necessary part of nursing in the future. Instead of providing one-on-one care, which society cannot afford, Jones believes that nurses must have a way of delivering individualized service to large groups of people. With technology such as Point of Care Ware, nurses can keep in touch with family members across the country via the Internet. They also can provide up-to-date information to doctors, social workers and other health care professionals via a shared patient data bank.

Jones notes that even Florence Nightingale was a "systems person," compiling and analyzing statistics about patient care so effectively that she reduced the mortality rate for hospitalized soldiers from 38% to 2% during the Crimean War.

Reflecting on Nightingale’s impact on the profession of nursing, Jones muses, "One can only imagine what she could have achieved with a computer!"

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