Nursing Informatics Assignment Example

Nursing Informatics Assignment Example

Before a healthcare provider sees a patient, they need to know the patient’s medical background. The providers need to see the patient’s laboratory results, medications, previous illnesses, and any prior surgical procedures. Researching this information takes time, thus spending time with the patient is limited. A computerized management system will help eliminate the prolonged time wasted in searching for patient data. Increasing Quality of Care. The computerized management systems are going to help nurses and healthcare providers deliver more accurate care.

The time spent on paper charting would be reduced because it will allow nurses to do on-the-spot charting at the bedside. Handwriting of the providers that are difficult to read will no longer be a problem. It will save time in documentation of patient’s information, therefore increasing the time spent with the patient. Brook, Mcglynn, and Paul (2000) explained that in order to improve quality of care, we will need adequate data and that will require patients to provide information about what happened to them and allow people to abstract their medical record.

When patient’s information are documented accurately, and healthcare providers will have a complete computerized medical record that will help in giving quality of care safely. A complete medical history can help healthcare providers keep track of the illnesses of a patient and be able to monitor the patient’s health problems safely. Patient information such as laboratory results, will be obtained faster and can be accessible to any care team involve in patient’s care. Nursing Involvement. Nurses are skilled in the field of nursing. They have knowledge on how to do patient care and communicate their findings to healthcare providers.

Nurses will always be a critical thinker when it comes to patient care, and safety of the patient is their priority. Therefore, it is important for the nurses to be involved in choosing the right computerized system. Computer management systems that do not work for the nurses may be more difficult to deliver proper care safely. Nurses will accept the new technology if they are given the time to give their recommendations in planning and implementation of the system. Testing and evaluating various types of devices in different departments of the facility will be determined if the changes will improve the working environment.

When it comes to decision-making process, nurses’ input is important because they work with all the members of healthcare team and they are directly involved with the care of the patient. Integration of Handheld Devices. Searching online information is a challenge for the nurses because it takes time to do a research. Since nurses are responsible for delivering patient care, handheld devices is a tool that are useful to nurses because they can obtain immediate electronic healthcare resources at the patient’s bedside. Even the clinicians are able to collect data at the bedside and deliver care immediately and safely.

According to Hardwick, Pulido, Adelson (2007) nurses can use handheld devices to document clinical data at the patient bedside, organizing and reporting medical services and adding evidenced – based practice reference. The device can help with the documentation of the clinical data of the assessments, interventions and outcomes into managing a proper care for the patients. Nurses and healthcare providers are having a hard time obtaining information that is convenient and currently up–to-date due to their busy assignments.

With the andheld devices, they can obtain proper information at the bedside. Laboratory result abnormalities that need immediate action can be identified by the device and alert can be sent to the providers right away thereby reducing the time of the administration of appropriate treatment and catching the seriousness of the patient’s problem. Handheld devices is one of the tools that is very convenient for the nurses and providers because it will help them asses, give immediate intervention and evaluate faster therefore spending more time with each patient.

Security Standards of Data and Patient Confidentiality. One of the most important responsibilities of healthcare personnel is protecting patient’s privacy. Any medical information shared by patient should be done in privacy. Computer charting should not be visible to anyone. Anyone that gains entrance into the system can easily access the patient’s information. The HIPAA privacy and security rules provide direction for policy makers to follow in working with those charged with the technical implementation of data security (Gray, n. d. ). Nursing Informatics Assignment Example

The HIPAA regulations protect a patient’s right to control the use and disclosure of his or her protected health information. The rule secures the confidentiality, integrity and the availability of all electronic patient information that are concealed. Confidentiality of the information cannot be obtain or can be made public by an unauthorized persons. Integrity of the information cannot be changed or destroyed by unauthorized method. Kibbe, (2005) emphasized that the need for data storage integrity is important for the accuracy and security of the stored data.

It is important that the clinical data is well protected from hardware or software malfunctions, disk errors, system malfunctions, and minor integrity violations that will cause a further loss of a data. Kibbe (2005) pointed out that the need for data back up and recovery is quite important for the electronic patient information data. During unexpected event, data software and hardware systems are usually destroyed. A data base back-up is a secondary copy of a data base that are stored in a place designated by the facility so the data can be recovered in case of uneventful disaster.

According to Kibbe (2005), “ The HIPAA regulation explicitly states that any healthcare facility that electronically maintains or transmits health information for individuals must establish procedures for back-up and recovery. ” ( pp. 43). Healthcare Cost. It is currently believed that electronic medical record system will improve health, decrease medical errors and have large savings on healthcare. There will be less waste of paper because paper charting will be a thing of the past. According to President Obama, computer management systems help decrease repeating expensive tests and reduce medical errors.

It will cost millions of dollars to install a computerized system in a facility but with the reduction of medical errors, reduction of repeated expensive test, and accurate data collection of patient’s information which will monitor a patient’s health and eventually prevent any diseases from getting worst thus lesser hospitalization, would reduce the healthcare cost. Benefits. With the new computerized system, patients will be glad that healthcare providers are now placing more importance on patient’s time, have immediate access to their information, thus cutting the waiting time. Nursing Informatics Assignment Example

As nurses, the use of the new system increases the time spent with the patient at bedside because patient’s information is readily obtained. The nurses can give more attention to the patient’s health problems and be able to help them with their concerns safely. With the use of a computerized system, nurses will be able to organize their day faster and deliver care easily. They are able to communicate and work with the care team immediately if problem exist. In this way, the nursing care is done efficiently and safely.

Nurses and healthcare providers have better communication regarding each patient because patient information is easily obtain. Listed below are two computerized management systems that are capable of meeting the hospital needs : The G. E. Centricity software and the Cerner software. G. E. Centricity Software: Alliance (n. d. ) described that the company offers a combination of clinical and medical management systems with wide variety of medical devices and medical imaging systems. It also offers computer charting that can be widely used around the hospital.

They provide electronic health record that gathers all the patient’s data and provide and maintain integrity and secure data center environment. It also includes data back-ups and off site data base storage. The system had built in information and reports are customized which alerts problem areas. It has a streamline of workflow and able to document patient encounter. They also provide an end-user training services and local information technologists are trained to troubleshoot any problem. Cerner Software: Cerner (n. d. stated that the company offers a variety of clinical and medical computerized management systems.

They offer electronic medical record system that provides immediate access to patient’s information such as laboratory result and clinical data from all the disciplines that are involved with the patient, wherever and whenever it is convenient for the care team. It offers computer charting to everyone that is taking care of the patient, viewing of patient data, each individual can customize their view to match their work flow, notifications are flagged to indicate critical results.

Nursing Informatics Assignment Example