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Background: In the context of pediatric palliative care, where the quality of life of children with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions is of utmost importance, the integration of health technology must support the provision of care. Research has highlighted the role of healthcare personnel when utilizing health technology in home-based pediatric palliative care, but specific knowledge of healthcare personnel's views on the technological relevance remains limited. Therefore, our study has explored potentials and limitations of health technology in home-based pediatric palliative care from the perspectives of healthcare personnel. Methods: Our study utilized a qualitative, descriptive, and exploratory design, including five focus groups with a total of 22 healthcare personnel. The participants were selected from various health regions in Norway and were experienced in providing home-based pediatric palliative care. Using reflexive thematic analysis, we interpreted data obtained from focus groups, identified patterns, and developed themes. Results: The analysis resulted in the development of three intersecting themes: balancing in-person interaction and time in home-based pediatric palliative care; exchange of information can improve timely and appropriate care; and the power of visual documentation in pediatric palliative care. The healthcare personnel acknowledged difficulties in fully replacing in-person interaction with health technology. However, they also emphasized potentials of health technology to facilitate information sharing and the ability to access a child's health record within interdisciplinary teams. Conclusion: The results underscored that technology can support pediatric palliative care but must be thoughtfully integrated to ensure an individualized patient-centered approach. To maximize the benefits of health technology in enhancing home-based pediatric palliative care, future research should address the limitations of current health technology and consider the opinions for information sharing between relevant healthcare team members, the child, and their family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: HIV early infant diagnosis (HEID) at the centralized laboratory faces many challenges that impact the cascade of timely HEID. Point of Care (PoC) HEID has shown to reduce test turnaround times, allow for task shifting and has the potential to reduce infant mortality. We aimed at assessing the feasibility of nurse based PoC-HEID in five facilities of Mbeya region. Methods: We analysed data from healthcare workers at five obstetric health facilities that participated in the BABY study which enrolled mothers living with HIV and their HIV exposed infants who were followed up until 6 weeks post-delivery. Nurses and laboratory personnel were trained and performed HEID procedures using the Xpert HIV-1 Qual PoC systems. Involved personnel were interviewed on feasibility, knowledge and competency of procedures and overall impression of the use of HIV-1 Qual PoC system in clinical settings. Results: A total of 28 health care workers (HCWs) who participated in the study between 2014 and 2016 were interviewed, 23 being nurses, 1 clinical officer, 1 lab scientist and 3 lab technicians The median age was 39.5 years. Majority of the nurses (22/24) and all lab staff were confident using Gene Xpert PoC test after being trained. None of them rated Gene Xpert handling as too complicated despite minor challenges. Five HCWs (5/24) reported power cut as the most often occurring problem. As an overall impression, all interviewees agreed on PoC HEID to be used in clinical settings however, about half of them (11/24) indicated that the PoC-HEID procedures add a burden onto their routine workload. Conclusion: Overall, health care workers in our study demonstrated very good perceptions and experiences of using PoC HEID. Efforts should be invested on quality training, targeted task distribution at the clinics, continual supportive supervision and power back up mechanisms to make the wide-scale adoption of nurse based PoC HEID testing a possibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]