Kaemmerer J Week 5 Assignment Health Topic
NR 512
NR512
HealthIT: Electronic Health Records
Chamberlain College of Nursing
Fundamental
... [Show More] of Nursing Informatics
NR 512
HealthIT: Electronic Health Records
Electronic health records (EHR’s) is a HealthIT topic of great importance. They have greatly benefited the health care field and the patients that are cared for daily. This paper will speak to the benefits and importance of EHR’S; how they have impacted the patient-care experience, assisted physicians in treating and diagnosing their patients, and improved the quality, safety, and efficiency of care. This paper will also note the relationship between nursing informatics and the EHR, as well as the pros and cons of utilizing an EHR’s.
Rational for discussing EHR’s
EHR’s are essential in today’s healthcare field and need to be discussed. This topic was chosen because of the impact EHR’s have had on the health care field and the positive impact it will continue to foster. Nursing informatics has been essential in assisting with the institution and education of EHR’s. Nursing tends to be the largest groups of EHR users since they comprise the largest group of healthcare workers within the field of healthcare, and this has impacted them considerably (Rojas & Seckman, 2014). EHR design can become an issue when hospital administrators are purchasing the program but not allowing the end user’s, i.e., the nurses have input (Rojas & Seckman, 2014). It is vital for nurses to focus on patient care and not be distracted by technology that is not user friendly and slows them down taking them away from the bedside (Rojas & Seckman, 2014). Even though EHR’s have positively impacted health care, there are still many concerns regarding their use. This paper will also speak to the negative aspects of EHR’s.
Convincing argument: Pros of EHR’s
The EHR has been essential in facilitating the sharing of medical information among medical professional and patients, reducing medical errors, and improving the quality of biomedical data gathering (Lanier, Dao, Hudelson, Cerutti, & Perron, 2017). EHR’s assist with the enhancement of patient safety, evaluation of quality care, augmenting efficiency and gauging staffing needs (Lanier, Dao, Hudelson, Cerutti, & Perron, 2017). This clinical documentation supports patient care provided by the healthcare personnel, improves clinical outcomes, and enhances interprofessional communication among team members (Lanier, Dao, Hudelson, Cerutti, & Perron, 2017). Nurses play a significant role in the adoption of EHR’s, because of their vast numbers and understanding of workflow (Rojas & Seckman, 2014). Evidence-based practice (EBP) standards of care have been structured within the EHR (Walker-Czyz, 2016). These embedded practice standards assist with promoting decision making by providing nurses with a checklist of intended care delivery, which in turn fosters compliance of said practice standards (Walker-Czyz, 2016). It is known that many patients change healthcare providers frequently while seeing a variety of primary care providers and specialists (Bayer, Santelli, & Klitzman, 2015). EHRs have the potential for improving the quality of health care by allowing more effective coordination of multiple healthcare providers, improving the safety of medications and medication administration, and allowing for more rapid evaluation of care (Bayer, Santelli, & Klitzman, 2015).
Cons of EHR’s
EHR’s has had its share of difficulties. When paper charting was around, there was not a concern that the paper would stop functioning. With the institution of EHR’s across the healthcare field, hospitals must be prepared for system outages or scheduled downtimes for maintenance. Documentation during EHR downtimes, whether scheduled or unscheduled makes it imperative that hospitals have policies and procedures in place for when such circumstances occur (Mitchell, 2015). Do patient care relationships suffer from the use of EHR’s? Healthcare personnel must be able to use new technologies without sacrificing the relationships and interactions between their patients and family members (Mitchell, 2015). Since the institution of EHR’s within the examination rooms, it has become more challenging to maintain focus on interpersonal communication making it a challenge to explore psychosocial and emotional issues, as well as noting nonverbal aspects of communication such as eye contact (Mysen, Penprase, & Piscotty, 2016). Communication between the healthcare provider and the patient is vital and shows a positive relationship on patient outcomes which leads to satisfaction and adherence to treatment (Myse, Penprase, & Piscotty, 2016). Among healthcare providers, there is the perception that therapeutic communication suffers when computers are introduced into the relationship between the patient and the provider potentially causing a negative effect on patient satisfaction (Mysen, Penprase, & Piscotty, 2016).
Another concern with the use of EHR’s is the ability to keep patient information confidential. Health information privacy is the right of all patient’s (Wallis, Eggleton, Dovey, Leitch, Cunningham, & Williamson, 2018). There are concerns regarding hacker’s accessing private patient information. Unfortunately, EHRs are subject to attacks from inside and outside of the healthcare organization. Inside attacks are attacks where legitimate users of the patient record take advantage of their access and view patient data for purposes other than for providing patient care (Shenoy & Appel, 2017). The outside attacks are considered security breaches from an outside source (Shenoy & Appel, 2017). Ethical concerns arise even when there is a legitimate use of patient’s private information by healthcare providers (Shenoy & Appel, 2017).
Informatics skills used
Nursing informatics (NI) skills were used heavily for this assignment. I was able to capture and utilize a large amount of information and data using Chamberlains College of Nursing’s library. If I was unable to capture the data or information I felt I should have by using the school’s library, I would go to the Google search engine to broaden my search. Many articles were not fully available through Google which lead me to copy and paste the name of the article into the school’s library search bar. This allowed me to read the full article. I learned that by changing the words of my search slightly, I was able to acquire more articles on the subject matter I was attempting to find. I was able to easily determine the validity of the articles and judge them for their scholarliness. I had multiple windows open to account for google searches, school library searches, power-point announcement regarding this week’s assignment, and a word document open for typing my paper. NI skills were utilized during the research and writing of this paper.
Conclusion
EHR’s are here to stay. They have been hugely successful in creating a one-stop-shop for healthcare providers to access their patient’s information, in order to provide and obtain a comprehensive health history. When providers have access to a patient’s healthcare record from other facilities, the patient and provider benefit. This leads to decreased healthcare cost overall by preventing repeat testing and decreasing delays in care while waiting for records to be sent from outside facilities. A win-win for patient and provider. There is still concern regarding confidentiality and the safeguarding of patient information. This concern will not go away but will most likely diminish over time as more safety features are added to the technology to assist with the safeguarding of patient’s private and sensitive information. More research needs to be conducted to better understand the safety risks and overall future benefits of the EHR.
References
Bayer, R., Santelli, J., & Klitzman, R. (2015). New challenges for electronic health records confidentiality and access to sensitive health information about parents and adolescents. Journal of the American Medical Association, 313(1), 29-30. Retrieved from https://eds-b-ebscohost-com.chamberlainuniversity.idm.oclc.org/eds/detail/detail?vid=1&sid=e67285cf-b8ee-4136-9b5b-562969b4d5a6%40sessionmgr120&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%3d#AN=000347478000009&db=edswsc
Lanier, C., Dao, M. D., Hudelson, P., Cerutti, B., & Perron, N. J. (2017). Learning to use electronic health records: Can we stay patient-centered? A pre-post intervention study with family medicine residents. BMC Family Practice, 18(1), 69. doi: 10.1186/s12875-017-0640-2
Mitchell, R. N. (2015). Documentation during EMR downtimes. For the Record, 27(8), 10-11. https://eds-b-ebscohost-com.chamberlainuniversity.idm.oclc.org/eds/detail/detail?vid=3&sid=35345cf5-365f-4fc1-90dc-a8d78aaf6a09%40pdc-v-sessmgr01&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%3d#AN=110420339&db=ccm
Mysen, K. L., Penprase, B., & Piscotty, R. (2016). Patient satisfaction with electronic health record use by primary care nurse practitioners. CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing, 34(3), 116-121. doi: 10.1097/CIN.0000000000000218
Rojas, C. & Seckman, C. (2014). The informatics nurse specialist role in electronic health record usability evaluation. Computer Informatics Nursing, 32(5), 214-220. doi: 0.1097/CIN.0000000000000042
Shenoy, A. & Appel, J. M. (2017). Safeguarding confidentiality in electronic health records. Cambridge Quarterly Of Healthcare Ethics: CQ: The International Journal Of Healthcare Ethics Committees, 26(2), 337-341. doi: 10.1017/S0963180116000931
Walker-Czyz, A. (2016). The impact of an integrated electronic health record adoption on nursing care quality. The Journal of Nursing Administration, 6(7-8), 366-372. doi: 10.1097/NNA.0000000000000360
Wallis, K. A., Eggleton, K. S., Dovey, S. M., Leitch, S., Cunningham, W. K., & Williamson, M. I. (2018). Research using electronic health records: Balancing confidentiality and public good. Journal of Primary Health Care, 10(4), 288-291. doi: http://dx.doi.org.chamberlainuniversity.idm.oclc.org/10.1071/HC18040 [Show Less]