Review of Current Healthcare Issues Essay Paper
If you were to ask 10 people what they believe to be the most significant issue facing healthcare today, you might get 10 different answers. Escalating costs? Regulation? Technology disruption?
These and many other topics are worthy of discussion. Not surprisingly, much has been said in the research, within the profession, and in the news about these topics. Whether they are issues of finance, quality, workload, or outcomes, there is no shortage of changes to be addressed.
In this Discussion, you examine a national healthcare issue and consider how that issue may impact your work setting. You also analyze how your organization has responded to this issue.
To Prepare:
Review the Resources and select one current national healthcare issue/stressor to focus on.
Reflect on the current national healthcare issue/stressor you selected and think about how this issue/stressor may be addressed in your work setting.
Review of Current Healthcare Issues
Electronic health records (EHR) is a national health care issue that has gained much attention in recent times. The current legislation require that medical facilities invest in information technology that enables them to have a EHR system with the capacity to maintain an electronic version of patients medical records. Review of Current Healthcare Issues Essay Paper The EHR is maintained by a provide over time and includes information from laboratory data, vaccinations, past medical history, vital signs, medications, problems, progress reports and demographics that are particular to the individual (Mantas et al., 2019).
EHR has had a profound impact on health care delivery through supporting clinical tasks thereby improving the efficiency and quality of health care. It has introduced many novel functionalities that improve communication and decision making among medical personnel. Some of the novel functionalities include medication and clinical workflow to allow for better overviews and planning (Mastrian & McGonigle, 2017). Still, EHR presents a concern with regards to the need for better instruction on available features, reliability, number of logins, and system stability. Poor instructions on available features make it difficult and frustrating to use the system. Low reliability creates a problem as information may not be available when needed. A high number of logins causes users to spend much time repeatedly logging into the ICT system to view medical records, a time-consuming task. An unstable system creates a concern since its technical performance would be poor such that the system responds very slowly or hangs up with users having to wait for query responses (Graban, 2018).
These are EHR development issues that pertain to the system satisfaction and usefulness. The organization has addressed these concerns through purchasing reliable EHR systems with good reviews from reputable vendors and good support structures. A reliable system is one that has been tested by other users and has received good reviews from the users. Reputable vendors are companies that can be trusted to deliver on their promises. A good support structure entails being available to correct system hitches. Through these approaches, the organization has presented a EHR system without the discussed issues (Graban, 2018).
References
Graban, M. (2018). Lean Hospitals: Improving Quality, Patient Safety, and Employee Engagement (3rd ed.). Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Mantas, J., Hasman, A., Gallos, P., Kolokathi, A., Househ, M., & Liaskos, J. (2019). Health informatics vision: from data via vision to knowledge. Washington, DC: IOS Press.
Mastrian, K. & McGonigle, D. (2017). Informatics for health professionals. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Review of Current Healthcare Issues Essay Paper