Name
Capella University
NURS-FPX8012: Nursing Technology and Health Care Information Systems
Prof Name
September, 2024
Technology-Informatics Use in Your Practice Setting
Hello, I am —. The reflection video addresses the technological and informational components that apply within my place of practice. In my current facility, EHRs are pivotal in ensuring quality patient care, improving communication channels, and enhancing general workflow (Darvish et al., 2019). The HITECH Act has driven the catalyst for the use of EHRs and implemented directly through meaningful use standards to increase accuracy, retrievability, and efficiency. Even though its benefits, including the effective ability to create a health information care team, resistance among the employees against new systems, and several technical issues faced sometimes are points of disutility and need to allow full utilization. The change in workflow with proper redesign should help in improving training so that the transition to EHR would be smoother and deliver improved patient outcomes and better teamwork.
Benefits of the Chosen Technology
The introduction of electronic health records in my practice site has resulted in a multifaceted improvement in patient care as well as the most efficient daily activities in the clinical setting. While many of them, one of the most significant benefits is the existence and accuracy of patient information (Gause et al., 2022). Complete medical histories, lab results, treatment plans, and other pertinent information related to a patient are available in a matter of minutes to any clinicians requesting such information, consequently giving them ample time to make informed and timely decisions. For example, in emergency treatment, easy access to the patient’s history prevents delays and results in better interventions. EHRs also facilitate communication much easier for departments and their care providers so that every member of the team knows exactly where everyone stands and consequently minimizes the potential for errors based on documentation. EHRs also facilitate enhanced clinical decisions because they inform alerts that may result from potential drug interactions or contraindications that can help the patient better.
Apart from enhancing the outcomes of the patients, EHRs have streamlined the workflow in the healthcare setting (Rossi et al., 2022). Activities such as scheduling, billing, and prescription management have been automated with ample staff resources only spending more time on care for the patients. For instance, e-prescribing allows prescriptions to be directly sent from the provider to the pharmacy for filling, resulting in reduced wait times for medication in patients as well as reduced errors. Then, the organization will meet the HITECH Act and Meaningful Use requirements, based on their mandates and insist on the use of technology and quality care. In general, the implementation of EHRs has improved the effectiveness of healthcare delivery thus enhancing the satisfaction of patients and the organized workflow of the organization.
Obstacles in the Utilization of the Technology
Despite the extensive benefits provided by EHRs, several obstacles hinder their full utilization in clinical settings (Brown et al., 2020). Some of the key issues include an attitude of resistance to change from the healthcare professionals and a working attitude by those who are less in touch or uncomfortable with technology. For instance, clinically experienced nurses and physicians will sometimes need longer periods of transit to the electronic systems mainly because they spent years relying on paper records; thus, their adoption rates may be slower while also facing a higher risk of errors. Besides, learning the EHRs can be steep in busy settings. This may cause frustration among employees as they are introduced to new workflows and will be perceived as adding to the data-entry burden, which will affect not only morale but also productivity. From an administrative standpoint, the greatest cost burden for initiating EHRs is the upfront cost of deploying the system, training staff, and configuring equipment and infrastructure.
The high initial expense for an EHR system, staff training, and often the purchase of new equipment poses a massive obstacle for smaller healthcare facilities. Besides, technical problems may appear in the system downtime, system software bugs, or connectivity issues that may hamper the workflow and hence affect the aspects of patient care (Moore et al., 2020). They may pose significant difficulties to IT support teams and cause delays, and both staff and patients become dissatisfied. Some providers may also be concerned that the increased focus on entering data is being taken away from direct attention to patients, as well as risks to patient privacy and security generally, of which they are more susceptible in a digital framework. From the perspectives of various stakeholders, these concerns point toward the challenge involved in ensuring that EHRs will be integrated successfully into a healthcare system.
Another challenging aspect in the adoption of EHRs is the issue of how one protects patient information from unauthorized access while at the same time ensuring the security of the information. Even with the digitization of health records, the odds of damage, loss, or exposure to unauthorized parties are achieved with greater ease. This is one of the greatest fears among healthcare organizations, especially when there are strict regulations such as HIPAA that govern how health data is protected. For example, any weakness in security, whether it stems from weak encryption or inadequate access controls, can cause breaches that can damage the reputation of the organization and can attract legal consequences. Similarly, healthcare professionals may be concerned about how much time would have to be spent to enter data accurately and securely because balancing patient care with detailed record-keeping is a time-consuming activity (DeLeeuw et al., 2020). All this creates high pressure on health facilities to invest in advanced cybersecurity measures, training of the workforce, and continuous system updates to ensure the protection of patient information, all of which are often costly and time-consuming.
Workflow for the Usage of Technology
In my practice setting, I redesigned the workflow involving the use of EHRs to be more efficient and accurate in patient care (DeJong et al., 2020). The earlier process was labor-intensive with intensive room for errors during handoffs because it involved manual documentation. In an EHR, the workflow begins with patient registration. Much of this information is now drawn in directly by the administrative staff from the administrative module or source. All this information is readily available at the click of a mouse to anyone who is authorized access. Clinicians immediately can view comprehensive records of lab tests, medication received, and complete histories of a patient within the point of care. This streamlined process eliminates test and procedure duplication, minimizes the opportunities for miscommunication, and hastens critical decisions in emergency care and preparation for surgery.
Clinical documentation and drug management workflow redesigns have been enhanced. One of the major advantages of this system is that nursing and doctor staff can update the patient record in real time so that all the plans, orders, and observations are done (Van et al., 2020). The service allows e-prescribing, transmitting electronically directly to the pharmacy, reducing time spent on paper, which is prone to human error, and thus it reduces wait time for patients. The implementation of this workflow enhancement included automated alerts to prevent harmful drug interactions, and allergies, as well as other important safety checks to increase patient safety. Such developments have, therefore, enabled better-coordinated teamwork among care teams, less paper usage, and easier access to information in people practicing healthcare.
NURS FPX 8012 Assessment 1 Conclusion
EHR integration in healthcare settings has improved care quality, safety, and efficiency through the delivery of care to patients (Johnston et al., 2022). The main ways in which EHR enhances patient care include streamlined workflows, real-time information availability, and minimizing documentation and medication-related errors. Even with potential problems like resistance to change, data security issues, and the high costs of implementation persisting, proper training would alleviate the said problems together with a good set of cybersecurity and continuous systems enhancement. As technology evolves, healthcare organizations have to be adaptive and committed to the best use of informatics in the interests of patient outcomes and the efficiency of care teams.
NURS FPX 8012 Assessment 1 References
Brown, J., Pope, N., Maria, A., Mason, J., & Morgan, A. (2020). Issues affecting nurses’ capability to use digital technology at work: An integrative review. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 29(15-16), 2801–2819. https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.15321
Darvish, A., Bahramnezhad, F., Keyhanian, S., & Navidhamidi, M. (2019). The role of nursing informatics in promoting quality of health care and the need for appropriate education. Global Journal of Health Science, 6(6). https://doi.org/10.5539/gjhs.v6n6p11
DeLeeuw, J. A., Woltjer, H., & Kool, T. B. (2020). Identification of factors influencing adoption of health information technology in nurses digitally lagging: an in-depth interview study (Preprint). Journal of Medical Internet Research, 22(8). https://doi.org/10.2196/15630
DeJong, A., Donelle, L., & Kerr, M. (2020). Nurses’ use of personal smartphone technology in the workplace: a scoping review (Preprint). JMIR MHealth and UHealth, 8(11). https://doi.org/10.2196/18774
Gause, G., Mokgaola, I. O., & Rakhudu, M. A. (2022). Technology usage for teaching and learning in nursing education: An integrative review. Curationis, 45(1). https://doi.org/10.4102/curationis.v45i1.2261
Johnston, C., Butcher, D., & Aveyard, H. (2022). An integrative review exploring the impact of electronic health records (EHR) on the quality of nurse-patient interactions and communication. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 79(1). https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.15484
Moore, E. C., Tolley, C. L., Bates, D. W., & Slight, S. P. (2020). A systematic review of the impact of health information technology on nurses’ time. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 27(5), 798–807. https://doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocz231
Rossi, L., Butler, S., Coakley, A., & Flanagan, J. (2022). Nursing knowledge captured in electronic health records. International Journal of Nursing Knowledge, 34(1). https://doi.org/10.1111/2047-3095.12365
Van, B. A., Zheng, W. Y., Sundar, V., & Baysari, M. T. (2020). Optimizing clinical decision support alerts in electronic medical records: a systematic review of reported strategies adopted by hospitals. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 28(1), 177–183. https://doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocaa279
