Electronic Health Record Implementation Essay Paper
One way informatics can be especially valuable is in capturing data to inspire improvements and quality change in practice. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) collects data related to adverse events and safety concerns. If you are working within a practice setting to implement a new electronic health record (EHR) system, this is just one of the many considerations your team would need to plan for during the rollout process.
In a paper of 1,250-1,500 words, address the following questions related to the advanced registered nurse\’s role during this type of scenario:
1. What key information would be needed in the database that would allow you to track opportunities for care improvement?
2. What role does informatics play in the ability to capture this data?
3. Which systems and staff members would need to be involved in the design and implementation process and team?
4. What professional, ethical, and regulatory standards must be incorporated into the design and implementation of the system?
5. How would the EHR team ensure that all order sets are part of the new record?
6. How would you communicate the changes, including any kind of transition plan?
7. What measures and steps would you take to evaluate the success of the EHR implementation from a staff, setting, and patient perspective?
8. What leadership skills and theories would facilitate collaboration with the interprofessional team and provide evidence-based, patient-centered care?
You are required to cite five to 10 sources to complete this assignment. Sources must be published within the last 5 years and appropriate for the assignment criteria and nursing content.
Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.
This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.
You are required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite. Refer to the LopesWrite Technical Support articles for assistance.
This benchmark assignment assesses the following programmatic competencies:
2.3: Develop leadership skills to collaborate on interprofessional teams in the provision of evidence-based, patient-centered care.
5.2: Apply professional, ethical, and regulatory standards of practice in the provision of safe, effective health care.
Electronic Health Record Implementation Paper
Health care improvement is a co-production between medical personnel and patients. As a service, health care presents a unique model that simplifies the health care system into five elements. There is a need to collect information from the five elements to help track opportunities for care improvement. The first element is health, presented in the context of health care services with a focus on minimizing the burdens of disease and treatment. It collects information on the health care services. The second element is system/network, presented in the context of operating organizing structure that is characterized by good benefit for money, safety and quality to deliver value. Electronic Health Record Implementation Essay Paper It collects information on the management system. The third element is patient participation, presented in the context of understanding the assets and social support that patients contribute to their health and medical services. It collects feedback from patients on the services they receive in the medical facility and interactions with medical personnel. The fourth element is professional development, which indicates the capacity of medical personnel to understand and use analytical frames for science informed practice. It collects information on the capacity of medical personnel to provide the requires high quality and safe care. The final element is assessment and measurement, which brings attention to how the goals of patients are elicited and addressed, and whether they are attained. It collects information about health care service development (Batalden, 2018).
Informatics makes use of health care intelligence with a focus on technologies, processes and methodologies that transform raw data into useful and meaningful information for different healthcare purposes. Informatics plays three significant roles in the ability to capture data. Firstly, informatics facilitates efforts to ‘dig deeper’ for better decisions. This is achieved when the interdisciplinary expertise available in informatics is applied to strategically identify and implement workflows and technological infrastructure that position the medical organization for success. This ensures that informaticists are involved in planning for data capture in terms of what information (such as regulatory requirements, patient outcomes and quality metrics) is required (American Health Information Management Association, 2018). Secondly, informatics provides context for the data. It ensures that both the upstream and downstream contextual factors are included in planning for the data capture. To be more precise, it ensures that the available biodata (clinical information and patient history/behavior from electronics health records – EHR) is included alongside environmental data (such as climate, number of trees and air quality), community data (such as access to health care and crime rate), and socio-economics data (such as ethnicity/race, employment, education and income). Integrating the contextual information is expected to present better informatics results (Estiri, Patel & Murphy, 2018). Thirdly, informatics ensures that there is conformity with privacy and confidentiality expectations in the data collection. It presents the data collection protocols to ensure that only the required information is collected (Delvaux et al., 2018).
The design and implementation of the data collection would require access to the EHR system to understand that biodata it contains, and whether additional data should be collected from other sources. For instance, information on feedback and opinions of patients may not be available in the EHR system in which case there would be a need to engage patients to collect the information. In addition, an informatics team would be required with four members. The first member is an informatics specialist with the technical knowledge on data management. The second member is a representative of the facility who provides access to the EHR system. The third member is a health care professional who represents the medical personnel at the facility and offers insight into care aspects. The final member is a representative of others stakeholders, such as patients, who is responsible for ensuring that their interests are not ignored (Wicker & Browning, 2020).
The design and implementation of the information management system must consider two standards. The first standard concerns privacy and confidentiality. The information of interest contains private information that is subject to privacy and confidentiality expectations. There will be a need to access the EHR system, and conformity with this standard will require that the only authorized persons have access to the information. In addition, the persons authorized to access the information must be accountable for the use and misuse of the information they view. Besides that, strong security and privacy policies would be implemented to secure the information. The second standard concerns security breaches that threaten privacy when confidential information is availed to a third party without the prior express authorization or consent of the individual patient. Protection can be provided against security breaches by password protecting access to the information. In addition, the information should be encrypted to ensure that only persons with authorized ‘key’ can access and decode the information. Also, security measures such as intrusion detection software, antivirus software and firewalls should be included to protect the data integrity (Ozair et al., 2015).
There are four methods that the EHR team can apply to ensure that all order sets are part of the new record. Firstly, securing administrative support and facility buy-in to ensure that resources are availed and stakeholders are placed in the right frame of mind to support the initiative. Secondly, planning before building by determining current workflows and identifying the bottlenecks to eliminate. Thirdly, enlisting subject matter expects to improve value. Finally, providing user training that ensure that the new records can be used as intended without negatively interfering with workflow or other functions (EHR Intelligence, 2013).
The changes would be communicated by adopting a strategic internal communication strategic. Internal communication would be used with a focus on strategically managing the relationships and interactions between stakeholders at all levels of the organization. The internal communication efforts entail routine communication using a range of channels that include email, organization newsletters, and face-to-face conversations. The focus of the communication would be on transparency and symmetry. Transparent communication involves balanced objective reporting that holds the change to accountability, involves stakeholders in identifying the information they need, and offering useful, substantial and truthful information. All legally releasable information would also be made public in an unequivocal, balanced, timely and accurate manner. Symmetrical communication is characterized by negotiation, tolerance, adequacy, feedback, reciprocity, relationship, openness, credibility and trust (Wicker & Browning, 2020)
Five measures will be used to evaluate the success of the EHR implementation. The first measure is patient engagement that displays information on health metrics, such as what proportion of patients are accessing their clinical records using the EHR patient portal, and feedback from patients. The second measure is wait times. Long wait times indicate workflow problems whereby clinical and administrative personnel have difficulty in using the EHR system to process patients in a timely manner. The third measure is population health engagement in terms of how well the system engages patients with improving basic health indicators and preventive health interventions. The fourth measure is care coordination with regards to the ability to electronically coordinate care and share records in a seamless manner to include the proportion of patients whose clinical data is electronically shared across care settings. The fifth measure is return on investment with a focus on the financial measures of success relative to the cost of investment (Green, 2017).
Leadership an interprofessional team requires that leadership be facilitated in terms of consciously involving the team members in decision-making and appropriately delegating responsibilities, empowering team embers, providing information the team requires, and working to create agreement. In addition, it requires transformation and change by creating a climate where the team members are rewarded, motivated supported and challenged, responding flexibly, acting as a catalyst and facilitating change, acting as a role model, and inspiring others. Besides that, the leadership role requires personal qualities that include knowledge of people, empathy, commitment, and enthusiasm. Also, there is a need for goal alignment in terms of articulating a clear and inspiring vision, assuring goals are in line with the organization, regular review of performance, and providing feedback. Additionally, there is a need for team building in terms of setting expectations for working together, creating a climate for mutual respect, ensuring cohesion, developing interpersonal skills, ensuring the contextualization of team members, and promoting collaboration (Smith et al., 2018).
Electronic Health Record Implementation Paper
One way informatics can be especially valuable is in capturing data to inspire improvements and quality change in practice. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) collects data related to adverse events and safety concerns. If you are working within a practice setting to implement a new electronic health record (EHR) system, this is just one of the many considerations your team would need to plan for during the rollout process.
In a paper of 1,250-1,500 words, address the following questions related to the advanced registered nurse’s role during this type of scenario:
You are required to cite five to 10 sources to complete this assignment. Sources must be published within the last 5 years and appropriate for the assignment criteria and nursing content.
Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.
This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.
You are required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite. Refer to the LopesWrite Technical Support articles for assistance.
This benchmark assignment assesses the following programmatic competencies:
2.3: Develop leadership skills to collaborate on interprofessional teams in the provision of evidence-based, patient-centered care.
5.2: Apply professional, ethical, and regulatory standards of practice in the provision of safe, effective health care.