NURS 6051 THE IMPACT OF NURSING INFORMATICS ON PATIENT OUTCOMES AND PATIENT CARE EFFICIENCIES
Walden University NURS 6051 THE IMPACT OF NURSING INFORMATICS ON PATIENT OUTCOMES AND PATIENT CARE EFFICIENCIES – Step-By-Step Guide
This guide will demonstrate how to complete the Walden University NURS 6051 THE IMPACT OF NURSING INFORMATICS ON PATIENT OUTCOMES AND PATIENT CARE EFFICIENCIES assignment based on general principles of academic writing. Here, we will show you the A, B, Cs of completing an academic paper, irrespective of the instructions. After guiding you through what to do, the guide will leave one or two sample essays at the end to highlight the various sections discussed below.
How to Research and Prepare for NURS 6051 THE IMPACT OF NURSING INFORMATICS ON PATIENT OUTCOMES AND PATIENT CARE EFFICIENCIES
Whether one passes or fails an academic assignment such as the Walden University NURS 6051 THE IMPACT OF NURSING INFORMATICS ON PATIENT OUTCOMES AND PATIENT CARE EFFICIENCIES depends on the preparation done beforehand. The first thing to do once you receive an assignment is to quickly skim through the requirements. Once that is done, start going through the instructions one by one to clearly understand what the instructor wants. The most important thing here is to understand the required format—whether it is APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.
After understanding the requirements of the paper, the next phase is to gather relevant materials. The first place to start the research process is the weekly resources. Go through the resources provided in the instructions to determine which ones fit the assignment. After reviewing the provided resources, use the university library to search for additional resources. After gathering sufficient and necessary resources, you are now ready to start drafting your paper.
How to Write the Introduction for NURS 6051 THE IMPACT OF NURSING INFORMATICS ON PATIENT OUTCOMES AND PATIENT CARE EFFICIENCIES
The introduction for the Walden University NURS 6051 THE IMPACT OF NURSING INFORMATICS ON PATIENT OUTCOMES AND PATIENT CARE EFFICIENCIES is where you tell the instructor what your paper will encompass. In three to four statements, highlight the important points that will form the basis of your paper. Here, you can include statistics to show the importance of the topic you will be discussing. At the end of the introduction, write a clear purpose statement outlining what exactly will be contained in the paper. This statement will start with “The purpose of this paper…” and then proceed to outline the various sections of the instructions.
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How to Write the Body for NURS 6051 THE IMPACT OF NURSING INFORMATICS ON PATIENT OUTCOMES AND PATIENT CARE EFFICIENCIES
After the introduction, move into the main part of the NURS 6051 THE IMPACT OF NURSING INFORMATICS ON PATIENT OUTCOMES AND PATIENT CARE EFFICIENCIES assignment, which is the body. Given that the paper you will be writing is not experimental, the way you organize the headings and subheadings of your paper is critically important. In some cases, you might have to use more subheadings to properly organize the assignment. The organization will depend on the rubric provided. Carefully examine the rubric, as it will contain all the detailed requirements of the assignment. Sometimes, the rubric will have information that the normal instructions lack.
Another important factor to consider at this point is how to do citations. In-text citations are fundamental as they support the arguments and points you make in the paper. At this point, the resources gathered at the beginning will come in handy. Integrating the ideas of the authors with your own will ensure that you produce a comprehensive paper. Also, follow the given citation format. In most cases, APA 7 is the preferred format for nursing assignments.
How to Write the Conclusion for NURS 6051 THE IMPACT OF NURSING INFORMATICS ON PATIENT OUTCOMES AND PATIENT CARE EFFICIENCIES
After completing the main sections, write the conclusion of your paper. The conclusion is a summary of the main points you made in your paper. However, you need to rewrite the points and not simply copy and paste them. By restating the points from each subheading, you will provide a nuanced overview of the assignment to the reader.
How to Format the References List for NURS 6051 THE IMPACT OF NURSING INFORMATICS ON PATIENT OUTCOMES AND PATIENT CARE EFFICIENCIES
The very last part of your paper involves listing the sources used in your paper. These sources should be listed in alphabetical order and double-spaced. Additionally, use a hanging indent for each source that appears in this list. Lastly, only the sources cited within the body of the paper should appear here.
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Sample Answer for NURS 6051 THE IMPACT OF NURSING INFORMATICS ON PATIENT OUTCOMES AND PATIENT CARE EFFICIENCIES
Impact of Nursing Informatics
Nursing informatics has a remarkable role. It plays in refining patient results as well as patient care competencies. Experts in nursing informatics have used health information technology to make incredible commitments in healthcare settings. As health organizations are extending, they significantly need to give the quality mind and convey it auspicious to patients (Safdari & Azad, 2014). In the contemporary world, health organizations that are as yet utilizing conventional methodologies strategies for management experience difficulties in attempting to synchronize works in different offices in healthcare units.
Description of the Proposed Project
Planning and executing the change in nursing practice can be challenging. Presently, at this healthcare organization, nurses are performing handoff shift reports at the nurse’s station. Research is indicating the usage of bedside nursing report can prompt a diminishing in mistakes and better patient results (Darvish, Bahramnezhad, & Keyhanian, 2014). The objectives of implementing bedside nursing reporting are giving staff a traditional way to deal with increment communication between staff at move change, to include patients in their treatment, to diminish unfavorable occasions, and clinical mistakes. This project was created to improve the difference in move detailing the process on the units to guarantee tolerant security, and patient results are at the focal point of the hospital’s needs.
Stakeholders Impacted by Project
Hospital leaders and hospital agencies are dedicated to improving their environments to ensure patient protection and customer happiness is a priority. The Trustees and patients are the key stakeholders who will have an impact on the adoption of the Nursing Report. Decisions are taken in the best interests of the patient by the Board of Trustees. To order to prevent a terrible accident, the community depends strongly on the experience of these leaders. Drug mistakes and harmful effects have a detrimental effect on the doctor. The risk of fixing side effects and mistakes is capable of completely locking hospital doors. All patients in a hospital are immediate users (Verma & Gupta). The implementation of new projects would impact people accessing care from that hospital immediately. The hospital could not survive even without patients. When patients are not adequately cared for, patients may access individual hospitals and provide the treatment they need. Fewer patients are equivalent to lower hospital profits.
Patient Outcomes or Patient Care Efficiencies Project Will Improve
Nurse move changes require the successful exchange of data between nurses to prevent adverse events and clinical mistakes. Patients and families can assume a job to ensure that these advances in care are protected and viable. Research shows that when patients are occupied with their health care, it can prompt quantifiable enhancements in safety and quality. The advantages of bedside reporting are various and incorporate expanding persistent contribution and comprehension of care, the discourse between the patient and nurse on refreshes on their conditions, expanding responsibility of nurses, expanding cooperation and connections among nurses, expanding understanding fulfillment, and diminishing the potential for missteps to happen (Darvish, Bahramnezhad, & Keyhanian, 2014). Bedside report starts with the outgoing nurse acquainting the approaching nurse with the patient, trailed by an assessment of the patient and condition. The patient assessment will incorporate a general overview of the patient’s condition and critical parts of care. These conditions can run from wound sites to dressings, strange breath or heart sounds, studying the space for security, surveying the intravenous site for irritation and liquids, or anything considered strange. The communication during the bedside move report is expected to guarantee the continuum of care and patient security (Honey & Skiba, 2017). Bedside nursing report advances clear and open communication between the nurses and the patient and, in this manner, diminishes the potential for errors.
Also Read:
HEALTHCARE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY TRENDS
LITERATURE REVIEW: THE USE OF CLINICAL SYSTEMS TO IMPROVE OUTCOMES AND EFFICIENCIES
THE INCLUSION OF NURSES IN THE SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE
THE ROLE OF THE NURSE INFORMATICIST IN SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION
Required Technology
Since the earliest days of technology adoption in health care, nursing informatics experts have been at the forefront of driving change. Technology empowers care and upgrades safety by simplifying capacities that could be viewed as both basic and complex errands. Electronic Health Records (EHRs) will assume a vital job in executing the bedside nursing report. Nurses are answerable for most of EHR documentation during their works day (Safdari & Azad, 2014). A portion of these obligations incorporates creating plans of care, physiological parameters, appraisals, intercessions, and progress assessments, which are necessary to mind joining and patient security. Likewise, the improvement of an electronic system to follow errors found by the bedside nursing report (Thomas & Seifert, 2016). The clinical change includes evaluating and continually improving how patient consideration is conveyed at all levels in a consideration delivery organization. It happens when an organization rejects existing practice designs that convey wasteful or less successful outcomes and grasps a shared objective of patient safety, clinical results, and quality consideration through procedure update and IT execution. For example, “medication error” reporting or patient falls can be issues found and moderated during bedside nursing report. This system would be set up to break down, measure, and assess information to proceed with the required upgrades to persistent security picked up with bedside nursing report (Mcgonigle & Mastrian, 2017).
Members of the Project Team
The project group will comprise of the Quality Improvement Manager. At first, the Quality Improvement Manager should meet with the clinic heads to talk about the spending limit and money related support of the project. Eventually, the spending will decide whether another project is monetarily possible for the hospital at this time. The Quality Improvement Manager will be answerable for structuring and executing the new way to deal with accepting and acquiring bedside report at move change (Honey & Skiba, 2017). The person will likewise give and disclose the new changes to the nurse directors of each clinic unit. The nurse directors will assume instrumental jobs as individuals from the project group. The nurse directors will be liable for executing bedside nursing reports on their units. They are additionally liable for furnishing the nurses on the units with the best possible training to guarantee the implementation of next to report a smooth change. The facility may likewise uphold a time-sensitive deadline for the project to be a functioning procedure on each clinic unit. The nurse manager will be answerable for complying with this time constraint on their units. Nurse informaticists must encourage the consideration of computational instruments and calculations to help handle the assortment, association, examination, preparing, introduction, and dispersal of organic information (Mcgonigle & Mastrian, 2017). The nurse informaticists would make a framework to track, measure, and assess the kinds of blunders discovered during bedside report. The following of this information would be valuable to give further upgrades to persistent security picked up with bedside report.
Conclusion
It concludes that planning and implementing change in nursing practice can introduce difficulties. Patient consideration and how the consideration is conveyed is the establishment wherein healthcare organizations started. Beyond question, technology improving apparatuses influence each part of the nursing procedure in each care delivery condition. To build patient fulfillment and safety, medicinal services offices must be focused on giving consistent consideration successfully and proficiently. Healthcare organizations can do this all the more adequately through such nurse communication forms as bedside nursing report. Implementing the bedside nursing report forms into the nurse work process through technology that fabricates trust and connections and makes network with patients outside the emergency clinic dividers. Closing the communication gaps through bedside nursing report that different nurses, patients, and families improve patient and staff fulfillment and clinical results while carrying budgetary advantages to the organization.
References
Darvish, A., Bahramnezhad, F., & Keyhanian, S. (2014). The Role of Nursing Informatics on Promoting Quality of Health Care and the Need for Appropriate Education. Glob J Health Sci, 11-18.
Honey, M. L., & Skiba, D. J. (2017). Nursing Informatics Competencies for Entry to Practice: The Perspective of Six Countries. Forecasting Informatics Competencies for Nurses in the Future of Connected Health.
Mcgonigle & Mastrian, K. (2017). Nursing Informatics and the Foundation of Knowledge. Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Safdari, R., & Azad, Z. (2014). Solutions and Strategies for Nursing Informatics Development. International Journal of Nursing and Health Science, 4-12.
Thomas, T. W., & Seifert, P. C. (2016). Registered Nurses Leading Innovative Changes. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing.
Verma, M., & Gupta, S. (n.d.). Competency in informatics for nursing professional in India: Imbibing the tech-culture among nursing professionals. 2019.
Sample Answer 2 for NURS 6051 THE IMPACT OF NURSING INFORMATICS ON PATIENT OUTCOMES AND PATIENT CARE EFFICIENCIES
Nursing informatics is today a core aspect of nursing professional activities and processes. In their paper, Al Najjar et al. (2022) assert that nursing informatics reinforces nursing through the provision of standard language systems, decision-making support, improved application of technology, and better interactions among patients and clinical professionals. The purpose of this paper is to propose an informatics program or initiative to the organizational leadership to improve patient outcomes and patient care efficiencies in the facility as well as patient care experience.
Description of the Proposed Project
The need to improve care provision implores nurses to consider a host of approaches leveraging technologies in their practice settings. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in nursing is still relatively low yet it can offer increased benefits in improving efficiencies in patient care and outcomes. An important part of AI for nursing is predictive analytics which allows nurses to discover previously unknown patterns in different sources of clinical and operational data that can help them make better decisions (Booth et al., 2021). Using predictive analytics can help nurses to attain actionable insights that lead to greater accuracy, and timely yet appropriate interventions in a prescriptive manner for both patients and operational efficiencies.
In this case, the proposed project is syndromic surveillance that leverages both predictive analytics and EHRs alerts. While patient alerts lead to nurse fatigue, the proposed project will not rely on alerts alone but incorporate predictive analytics as a component of artificial intelligence (AI) (Carroll,2018). Real-time surveillance of patients can help identify possible adverse effects immediately. Instantaneous clinical decision support tools then take the analyzed surveillance and apply it within the shortest time to signal nurses to take immediate or precautionary measures or steps (Glassman, 2018). Poor usability, alert fatigue, and understanding of the program by different end-users have impacted the execution of real-time decision support tools. However, using predictive analytics algorithms and the optimization of EHR alerts will improve to ensure that syndromic surveillance improves patient outcomes in any healthcare setting.
Stakeholders Impacted by the Project
The implementation of this project will impact a host of stakeholders. Key among these include nurses, patients, their families, healthcare systems, and physicians. In their article, Schwalbe et al. (2018) assert that healthcare project stakeholders include sponsors, project managers, project teams, support staff, and regulatory entities. They also include third parties and critics of the project. In this proposed project, the project manager, the sponsor, and the team will be stakeholders as they will be directly involved in project development, implementation, and coordination. Secondly, nurses, nurse managers and leaders, support staff, and other healthcare personnel will be impacted since they will use the outcome of the syndromic surveillance to implement interventions for identified patients in their clinical practice. Patients as stakeholders will attain better outcomes through the reduction of the possibility of adverse events.
The regulatory bodies and the third parties, especially system vendors and developers, will ensure that the project’s implementation does not violate any regulations and complies with data protection and privacy laws like HIPAA and HITECH (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2022). The technology should also not be harmful to patients. Third parties like insurance organizations and even the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will be influenced as the initiative is aimed at reducing the overall cost of care through improved efficiencies and patient-quality care outcomes. The entire practice facility or healthcare organization is also a stakeholder as the project should align with its overall goals, strategy, and culture based on the mission and vision statements.
Patient Outcomes or Patient Care Efficiencies
The core aspect of any health improvement project or initiative is to enhance patient outcomes through the quality of care and enhancing efficiencies in processes. In their paper, Booth et al. (2021) implore nurses and healthcare providers as well as organizations to adopt informatics and other forms of healthcare technologies to improve patient outcomes and efficiencies in their processes. Therefore, the benefits of this initiative are immense for patients, nurses, and the healthcare system.
The use of syndromic surveillance that leverages predictive analytics and EHR alerts will lead to better patient outcomes. According to a study by Ageron et al. (2021), syndromic surveillance allows providers and public health systems to detect and monitor the occurrence of symptoms and other adverse events that may occur to patients. Using the tool, the article explores how healthcare providers leveraged the tool to predict hospital resource needs to counter the COVID-19 outbreak in Switzerland. The study notes that using the tool, public health providers and other healthcare professionals could predict and anticipate intensive care unit (ICU) occupancy by 13 days, including substantial aberration detection when the second wave occurred. The implication is that this tool will help improve the clinical decision-support abilities of nurses to offer interventions once they receive EHR alerts.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) asserts that syndromic surveillance offers healthcare professional a timely system that detects, understands, and monitor health events (Yoon et al., 2018). The system emphasizes the application of real-time pre-diagnostic data by tracking patients’ symptoms, right from the emergency department. The implication is that the implementation of the proposed solution will improve care coordination and allow nurses and other providers to support patient needs. Therefore, it will improve coordination which will enhance efficiency and overall patient outcomes.
Technologies Needed in Implementing the Project
The primary technology required in this project is artificial intelligence, especially predictive analytics and syndromic surveillance components as well as machine learning. Predictive analytics studies huge amounts of data to get indications of common symptoms, diagnoses, workflows, and other outcomes. The algorithms in predictive analytics use artificial intelligence aspects to get insight into the collected data and provide clinical decision support tools for nurses and other healthcare providers (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2022). The next technology required in this project is electronic health records (EHR) and their associated alerts. The project will leverage these technologies to develop a syndromic surveillance system to help nurses analyze patient symptoms and identify possible adverse events and make better clinical decisions.
Project Team
The project team is part of the stakeholders charged with the responsibility of planning and executing or implementing the project. The team will comprise the project sponsor, the project manager, nurse informaticists, third-party software vendors, and the financial manager. The project sponsor will be the main team member whose role will entail offering support and resources for the successful implementation of the project. The project sponsor will also ensure effective coordination and liaison with the management, especially the administrative and financial departments. The Health Information systems director will play this role (Ronquillo et al., 2021). The project manager will be the nurse manager whose main duty will be to oversight the overall implementation and coordinate the team comprising all experts and nurses. The project manager will provide weekly reports and identify areas that need improvement. The project manager will ensure that the project is completed based on the times to avoid any project creep.
Healthcare project teams should include medical experts who ensure that such initiatives are consistent with the best practices and do not harm patients (Schwalbe & Furlong, 2018). Because this project aims to enhance surveillance to improve clinical decision support, nurses and clinicians will be included. Their role would be to determine if the retrieved data provide sufficient details and can be used to identify symptoms, especially among patients at elevated risks from their disease conditions.
The informatics nurse will be a critical member of the project team and will implement the identified technologies in the healthcare practice. The informatics nurse will also evaluate the success of the project to determine if it is user-friendly and allows patients to make better clinical support decisions. The nurse informaticist will also collect information from nurses on what should be incorporated into the new system based on the organizational and practice requirements. Clinical data can only be meaningful if it is captured correctly by nurses (Hughes et al., 2020). Therefore, the nurse informaticist will also educate nurses and physicians on how to use the system and in daily operations in the facility. The informaticist will ensure that all nurses’ preferences are integrated into the system to help them attain set goals. The system vendor will also be a core part of the team with the role of providing the requisite system and its components. The vendor will install the system, and collaborate with the project manager and the nurse informatics to ensure that it meets the expected organizational functionalities.
Conclusion
The proposed project entails establishing a syndromic surveillance system to reduce adverse events by leveraging predictive analytics as a component of artificial intelligence and electronic health records (EHRs) alerts. The project will improve patient outcomes as well as organizational efficiencies by helping providers to make better clinical decisions. The project is critical in improving patient safety and ensuring that providers offer the best approach to patient needs.
References
Ageron, F. X., Hugli, O., Dami, F., Caillet-Bois, D., Pittet, V., Eckert, P., … & Carron, P. N.
(2022). Lessons from COVID-19 syndromic surveillance through emergency department activity: a prospective time series study from western Switzerland. BMJ open, 12(5), e054504. DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-054504.
Al Najjar, R. I., & Shafie, Z. M. (2022). Impact of Nursing Informatics on the Quality of Patient
Care. International Journal of Medical Science and Clinical Research Studies, 2(5), 418-421. DOI: https://doi.org/10.47191/ijms crs/v2-i5-19,
Booth, R. G., Strudwick, G., McBride, S., O’Connor, S., & López, A. L. S. (2021). How the
nursing profession should adapt for a digital future. BMJ, 373. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2021-054504
Carroll, W. (2018). Artificial intelligence, nurses, and the quadruple aim. Online Journal of
Nursing Informatics, 22(2). http://www.himss.org/ojn
Glassman, K. S. (2018). Using data in nursing practice. American Nurse Today, 12(11), 45–47.
Hughes, H. E., Edeghere, O., O’Brien, S. J., Vivancos, R., & Elliot, A. J. (2020). Emergency
department syndromic surveillance systems: a systematic review. BMC Public Health, 20(1), 1-15. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-09949-y
McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. G. (2022). Nursing informatics and the foundation of
knowledge (5th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning
Ronquillo, C. E., Peltonen, L. M., Pruinelli, L., Chu, C. H., Bakken, S., Beduschi, A., … &
Topaz, M. (2021). Artificial intelligence in nursing: Priorities and opportunities from an international invitational think‐tank of the Nursing and Artificial Intelligence Leadership Collaborative. Journal of advanced nursing, 77(9), 3707-3717. DOI: 10.1111/jan.14855
Schwalbe, K., & Furlong, D. (2018). Healthcare project management (2nd ed.). Schwalbe
Publishing.
Yoon, P. W., Ising, A. I., & Gunn, J. E. (2018). Using syndromic surveillance for all-hazards
public health surveillance: successes, challenges, and the future. Public Health Reports, 132(1_suppl), 3S-6S. DOI: 10.1177/0033354917708995
Sample Answer 3 for NURS 6051 THE IMPACT OF NURSING INFORMATICS ON PATIENT OUTCOMES AND PATIENT CARE EFFICIENCIES
Nursing is one of the fields where a collaborative approach is essential. Nursing informatics and technology experts must collaborate with all nurses to ensure smooth service delivery in order to deliver improved services (McGonigle &Mastrian, 2022). When patients enter a medical facility, they are welcomed by a receptionist who then directs them to the next stage after taking their information. The patient is directed to triage, where a nurse evaluates them to submit their numerous issues, including the urgency of patient treatment.
Prior to the doctor seeing the patient, conditions including blood pressure, sugar levels, and BMI are evaluated because they are so important. If the recording method is automated, the same results can be seen in the patient’s records, where they are sent straight to the doctor scheduled for that day. The prescription is suggested by the day’s doctor after the patient has been examined, admitted to the ward, or undergone additional testing. Depending on the doctor’s instructions, a nurse may step in at this point to administer medication or dress wounds. Patients undergo this operation on a daily basis, and nurses and other specialists must work together to provide the necessary services.
It is important to focus on improving relationships and technology since it reduces unnecessary delays, speeds up procedures, and, in the worst situations, it may prevent loss of life (Mosier, Roberts & Englebright, 2019). It is possible to effectively transmit patient data online in the triage and doctor’s consultation areas, which eliminates delays, lowers costs, and ensures the efficient provision of medical services. Nursing informatics is still developing, particularly in a field where the future of nursing appears to be more promising. Eliminating the manual patient recording system improves collaborative interactions, lowers costs, increases productivity, and raises quality (Ng, Alexander & Frith, 2018). Professional partnerships reportedly reach a whole new level thanks to emerging technology, which enhances service provision in healthcare facilities.
Sample Answer 4 for NURS 6051 THE IMPACT OF NURSING INFORMATICS ON PATIENT OUTCOMES AND PATIENT CARE EFFICIENCIES
Success in health care industry is often measured through patient outcomes. This metric is vital in ensuring that the available practices and procedures are efficient and also help in recognizing the ones that are not effective. Nonetheless, measuring patient outcomes is always associated with big data sets that are utilized to enhance these results in several ways. In turn, health informatics can play crucial role in this process. For instance, informatics can help in appropriately gathering, assessing, and leveraging the data, which can be used to enhance processes, improve efficiency, identify patients who are at risk, and advance research in an effort to enhance patient outcomes. Moreover, McGonigle & Mastrian (2017) argue that informatics has led to emergence of new technologies in clinical practice such as smart pumps, electronic health records, wearables, bar-code medication administration systems, and smartphones which are designed to enhance efficiency, foster safety, and streamline nursing practice. As such, it is imperative for nurses to have informatics competency to help them fostering effective communication, mitigating medical errors, managing knowledge, and supporting point of care decision making (Glassman, 2017). It is against this backdrop that this paper will explore use of electronic health records (EHR) as the proposed nursing informatics project to improve patient outcomes and care efficiencies.
Description of the Project
EHRs connote the digital adaption of patient paper based health records. The initiative has been proposed to address the issues that arise from the paper-based health records such as duplication, errors in drug administration, loss of records, mistaken identity, making of uninformed clinical decisions, and inefficient billing (Kruse et al., 2017). Since the health care environment is consistently changing and becoming highly competitive, the adoption of the EHRs can play a vital role in leveraging the patient care delivery and enhance the competitive capability of the care organization. Given the vital role that EHRs play in health care, Glassman (2017) calls for the meaningful use of EHRs. This involves sharing the data with patients and engaging them in their care within the frameworks of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Moreover, crucial patient care devices including vital sign monitors, cardiac monitors, and I.V. infusion pumps can be connected to EHRs to enhance the capacity of initiative and further improve patient outcomes (Glassman, 2017). Essentially, the use of EHRs is also supported by the American Nurses Association who calls for universally recognized terminologies among its members to support nursing practice within the EHR solutions (American Nurses Association, 2018).
Stakeholders
Clinicians
Clinicians encompass health care providers such as physicians, nurses, and pharmacists et cetera who take center stage in patient care provision. Therefore, EHR implementation will help them to access accurate and updated patient records to enable them provide the best diagnosis and treatment to realize positive patient outcomes.
The Management
This is the key stakeholder who can either ensure the success of the project or its failure. A good management should provide all necessary support required for change and ensure that the project aligns with the expectations of other players. The success of the project will enhance the health setting’s reputation as an affordable, quality health care provider.
The Patients
This is the primary stakeholder for implementing the EHR project. All the EHR endeavors are designed to improve the outcomes for patients and so, the project is designed to benefit the patients. Essentially, the success of the project will be measured based on the outcomes of the patients.
Front Office Staff
The staff at the front office plays a vital role in EHR implementation because they are tasked with key responsibility of feeding critical patient information including medical history, demographic, billing, and contact information into the EHR system. Any inappropriate entry in the system may lead to adverse impacts for patients.
EHR Vendors
EHR vendors are expected to design flexible systems that can meet the expectation of the organization, failure to which, the project will face eminent fall.
Patient Outcomes or Patient-Care Efficiencies
The implementation of EHRs will ensure enhancement of patient outcomes through provision of quality care. EHRs ensure provision of real-time, patient-oriented health data that are availed instantly and safely to the authorized users. Moreover, apart from providing medical and treatment history of the patient, EHRs also enable wider options of patient care due to its capability of accessing evidence-based care practice tools that can help providers to make informed decisions at the point of care. In addition, EHRs enables real-time point of care communication, which is essential in avoiding time wasted in peruse manual health records. Ultimately, the implementation of EHRs will lead to positive patient outcomes such as quality of health care, patient-centered care, reduction in hospital stays, and reductions in health care costs (Wani & Malhotra, 2018).
Technologies Required for the Project
Technology is a vital requirement in optimization of EHR. The project will require a standard server to join together with the rest of the system in the health care setting. The available computers will be utilized in EHR system, but they will be upgraded with the current operating system. To address compatibility issues, EHR system will be updated to be compatible with OS and windows. Moreover, the IT experts will be required to conduct training among the stakeholders to create awareness on how the system operates and the kind of processes that will be needed in every stage. Other technological requirements include application of virtual assistants to help in documentation, improving the interoperability through artificial intelligence, and optimizing the interface of EHR to increase usability.
The Project Team
The Project Manager
The project manager (PM) is one of the key members of the project team. The PM is expected to be technologically savvy and experienced in EHR implementation. The PM is tasked with responsibilities of overseeing the overall success of the project including attaining requirements and realizing deadlines for the implementation of the new EHR system (Vant, 2020).Moreover, the PM links various phases of the project to sophistically integrate and work together. The PM is also expected to facilitate the processes of planning, developing, designing, implementing, and testing phases of EHR to ensure they coordinate their effects to realize the desired goal of the project.
Physicians
Physicians are tasked with important responsibilities in EHR project including creating goals for the EHR implementation, identifying the best EHR vendor, trail staff satisfaction, address clinical needs, assess and select technology, defining the scope of the project and establishing budget, anticipate the profitability and check the progress, and to monitor the effect of the EHR on productivity.
Clinicians
Clinicians are expected to play a role of evaluating clinical workflows and propose changes, scrutinizing the clinical usability of the EHR software, and validating the descriptions of future clinical workflow. Moreover, clinicians can potentially work alongside EHR vendor to address any issue and also champion for the project among colleagues.
IT Experts
The IT professionals have responsibilities of evaluating software and hardware requirements, deal with or supervise system maintenance or upgrades, run system testing and go-live, and coordinate support and service for the system. The IT experts may also collaborate with the vendor for trouble shooting and also act as project manager.
Office Manager
The office manager is responsible for appraising the routine usability of EHR software, managing the change from paper-based records to digital records, help in overseeing system training, managing integration with supporting software such as back-office applications, recognize data transformation and reporting needs, and supervise EHR integration with legacy technology.
Front Office Staff
During the project implementation, the front office staff are tasked with various responsibilities including data entry to facilitate billing and coding, routine change from normal paper records to EHR data, use and testing crucial functions including scheduling, documentation of patient records such as insurance authorization, confirm data swap with pharmacies and other vendors, and recording any hitches or incompatibility in routine operations.
Essentially, engaging the project team is crucial in integrating all the features that are required in different stages and departments ranging from patient visit to the treatment process. Regarding the role of nurse informaticist, McGonigle & Mastrian (2017) postulate that they play a vital role of gathering and analyzing complex patient data and diffusing to different concerned stakeholders within the EHR system. Moreover, nurse informaticists also initiative system changes and improvement alongside IT experts to ensure quality service provision.
References
American Nurses Association. (2018). Inclusion of recognized terminologies supporting nursing practice within electronic health records and other health information technology solutions. Retrieved from https://www.nursingworld.org/practice-policy/nursing-excellence/official-position-statements/id/Inclusion-of-Recognized-Terminologies-Supporting-Nursing-Practice-within-Electronic-Health-Records/
Glassman, K. S. (2017). Using data in nursing practice. American Nurse Today, 12(11), 45–47. Retrieved from https://www.americannursetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/ant11-Data-1030.pdf
Kruse, C. S., Mileski, M., Vijaykumar, A. G., Viswanathan, S. V., Suskandla, U., & Chidambaram, Y. (2017). Impact of electronic health records on long-term care facilities: systematic review. JMIR medical informatics, 5(3), e35.
McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. G. (2017). Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge (4th ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Vant, A. (2020). Four Crucial Members of an EHR Implementation Team. Ehrinpractice.com. Retrieved 11 June 2020, from https://www.ehrinpractice.com/four-crucial-members-of-an-ehr-implementation-team-154.html.
Wani, D., & Malhotra, M. (2018). Does the meaningful use of electronic health records improve patient outcomes?. Journal of Operations Management, 60, 1-18.
Nursing Informatics (NI) is the specialty that integrates nursing science with information and analytical sciences to identify, define, manage, and communicate data, information, knowledge and wisdom in nursing practice. (Sipes, C. 2016). Nursing informatics has enhanced the current reality of providing direct patient care while beginning to transect the realities of live given to the current technological capabilities. (McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. G. 2022 PP 611).
The hospital I work in uses EPIC for their charting system. During your new hire orientation whether you are a new nurse or just new to the organization, you get a whole day of epic training by the CIT department. Our CIT department is made of registered nurses who specialized in nursing informatics. They teach you in the ends and outs of the epic system and how to utilize the patient’s electronic chart.
One strategy on how to improve interactions at my hospital would be to improve communication about new updates and programs that are launching. They often tend to wait until the last minute to provide new education on updates. For example, our hospital just recently went live with Glucomander. As nurses we were showed the bare minimum and were left with a lot of questions. It has gotten better once we started using it and got for familiar with it the program and how it works.
Nursing Informatics (NI) has evolved beyond the definition of data management defined early on by Staggers, Gassert, and Curran [1] but is still considered by many as the primary and only skill of a nursing informaticist. (Sipes, C. 2016). Nursing informatics is going to keep evolving because technology keeps advancing , which will allow for improvement in patient care. For example, at my hospital they purchased rover phones, these allow you to pull up a patient’s chart, scan your medications, look at labs and new orders without having to have a computer. Another example of Technology advances in eHealth and mHealth are changing the way that health care consumers and providers communicate, receive, and deliver care, and access health information. As electronic health records and smartphones have become ubiquitous in the United States, opportunities, and applications for the integration of eHealth and mHealth have increased. Chan, J. 2021). In addition to technology advances, the changing health care model is simultaneously adapting to and driving initiatives in digital health care. (Chan, J. 2021). Since COVID telemedicine became popular. It also had an impact on healthcare when it came to billing, and patient experiences. (McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. G. 2022 PP 618).
NURS 6051 Discussion The Application of Data to Problem-Solving
According to Kollerup, et al, in a study to test a 12-step process in medication management post hospitalization, a common issue was identified.
The hospital’s changes in medication led the nurse to reconsider the prescriptions in the light of the patient’s current needs. Establishing order in the medication lists subsequently involved contacts with the hospital, the GP, nursing assistants and the family. Medication issues could not always be resolved during the initial visit, and a follow‐up visit was often required. (Kollerup, et al 2018)
As a community health nurse, since 2018, I have witnessed the challenges of medication reconciliation. I have entered homes with a discharge list including a short list of medications, however, when I arrive at the patient’s home, I get the “tour”. We amble from cabinet to cabinet, tackle box to tackle box, drawer to drawer. I gather dozens of bottles of medications that the patient is determined to continue taking, while disregarding the new list that was established by the last MD office visit or the last hospitalization. Sometimes, these bottles include a hodge-podge of random and most definitely expired pills poured into a bottle. The patient is adamant that they have no difficulty taking their medications, that they are knowledgeable about the dosing and side effects and absolutely need no teaching currently. However, as an experienced clinician, I concur with the opinion of the infamous and sassy, television star, “House”-EVERYBODY LIES! Not really, but this thought does cross my mind from time to time.
This creates a challenge for the home health nurse, we must then, quickly gain the trust of the patient and their caregiver, obtain orders from the MD, provide education, and ensure that all appropriate medications are sorted and taken appropriately.
You make be asking yourself, what does this have to do with data collection? My current, and much appreciated career within the home health umbrella is working as a clinical supervisor. It is my job to be a “data detective”. I spend my entire day, reviewing documentation, approving orders, ensuring accuracy, promoting positive outcomes, and improving the satisfaction of the patient and the caregiver. I have a “hot topic book” in which I keep track of the “data” where I notice trends. I determine weaknesses in documentation and failures in planning. For example: my current hot topics are infection reporting, occurrence reporting, order writing, pain assessment, medication reconciliation. I am new again, to the state of Florida, therefore, new to this company. The company is currently scoring low in satisfaction and low in the “STAR RATING”. It is my responsibility to improve these outcomes. I have been actively providing education to the skilled nurses that perform the assessments to improve the outcomes in these identified areas. The patient is at significant risk for injury, decline in health status, rehospitalization and possibly death if medications are not reconciled correctly upon discharge from the hospital or MD office.
In, Masetti, et al, it is stated in their study of medication problems upon discharge from a hospital, that in addition to the known risk factors in patients transferring from hospital to home care (age, polymedication, multiple providers), 3 major problems impacted upon medication safety: fragmented communication, unreliable medication availability and a poor prescription quality. Clinical pharmacists are an important option to improve medication safety assessment. (Masetti, et al 2018).
The data that I gather and interpret is utilized to provide education to the skilled nurses on my teams. I am not re-inventing the wheel or re-creating processes. I often get frustrated because the skill of medication reconciliation should be a basic nursing skill. This important and key step in the assessment process is often overlooked or rushed. The nurses need to gain confidence in dealing with the complicated family dynamics and in communication with the MD office.
Medication reconciliation ensures that the patient has a correct list of medications, but many other issues affect the ability of the patient to successfully take those medications. Home care nurses gain important insights into both medication regimen complexity and patient and family perspectives while they are in the patient’s home. (Sheehan, et al, 2018).
Once, while in the Director of Nursing role, I attended a supervisory joint visit with skilled nurse, the patient was on coumadin, she was well controlled and only having her PT/INR checked monthly at this point, coumadin is automatically flagged a high-risk medication. The skilled nurse dutifully documented with each previous visit that she discussed and reviewed all the medications with the patient. I asked the patient to bring me her pill box, so I could check to see if her medications were due to be refilled, running low, etc. This was just my standard assessment during each visit, when I was in the field nursing role. The patient brought her bin filled with pill bottles. I have a standard, “play stupid” role, in which I hold up a bottle and ask the patient: 1) what is this pill? 2) what does it do for you? 3) how many do you take? 4) what time of the day do you take it? 5) what problems can you have if you take this medication? I would expect, within a few weeks of being on home care service, the patient would be able to correctly identify several of their medications. This patient was doing well, so I was initially impressed with the skilled nursing progress to goals. Then, I dug deeper into the bin. I picked up a total of 6 bottles of coumadin. The patient had been taking 1 pill from each bottle. She had gathered all her old bottles and dropped them in the basket and then followed the directions on the bottle. MY HEART STOPPED! This was an egregious error with potentially deadly results. The was an extensive corrective action process immediately initiated. And ever since, I have been committed, perhaps based out of mild PTSD, to ensuring that medication reconciliation is taken seriously and performed appropriately. Nurses cannot take the patient’s word as proof that the patient and their caregiver understand their medication regimen. Nurses must perform an actual assessment not an interview.
References
Kollerup, M. G., Curtis, T., & Schantz Laursen, B. (2018). Visiting nurses’ posthospital medication management in home health care: an ethnographic study. Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences, 32(1), 222–232. https://doi-org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1111/scs.12451
Meyer-Massetti, C., Hofstetter, V., Hedinger-Grogg, B., Meier, C. R., & Guglielmo, B. J. (2018). Medication-related problems during transfer from hospital to home care: baseline data from Switzerland. International Journal of Clinical Pharmacy, 40(6), 1614–1620. https://doi-org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1007/s11096-018-0728-3
Sheehan, O. C., Kharrazi, H., Carl, K. J., Wolff, J. L., Roth, D. L., Gabbard, J., & Boyd, C. M. (2018). HELPING OLDER ADULTS Improve Their Medication Experience (HOME). Home Healthcare Now, 36(1), 10–19. https://doi-org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1097/nhh.0000000000000632