NURS 6051 The Application of Data to Problem

Sample Answer for NURS 6051 The Application of Data to Problem Included After Question

In the modern era, there are few professions that do not to some extent rely on data. Stockbrokers rely on market data to advise clients on financial matters. Meteorologists rely on weather data to forecast weather conditions, while realtors rely on data to advise on the purchase and sale of property. In these and other cases, data not only helps solve problems, but adds to the practitioner’s and the discipline’s body of knowledge.

Of course, the nursing profession also relies heavily on data. The field of nursing informatics aims to make sure nurses have access to the appropriate date to solve healthcare problems, make decisions in the interest of patients, and add to knowledge.

In this Discussion, you will consider a scenario that would benefit from access to data and how such access could facilitate both problem-solving and knowledge formation.

RESOURCES

Be sure to review the Learning Resources before completing this activity.
Click the weekly resources link to access the resources.

WEEKLY RESOURCES

To Prepare:

Reflect on the concepts of informatics and knowledge work as presented in the Resources.
Consider a hypothetical scenario based on your own healthcare practice or organization that would require or benefit from the access/collection and application of data. Your scenario may involve a patient, staff, or management problem or gap.

BY DAY 3 OF WEEK 1

Post a description of the focus of your scenario. Describe the data that could be used and how the data might be collected and accessed. What knowledge might be derived from that data? How would a nurse leader use clinical reasoning and judgment in the formation of knowledge from this experience?

BY DAY 6 OF WEEK 1

Respond to at least two of your colleagues* on two different days, asking questions to help clarify the scenario and application of data, or offering additional/alternative ideas for the application of nursing informatics principles.

*Note: Throughout this program, your fellow students are referred to as colleagues.

A Sample Answer For the Assignment: NURS 6051 The Application of Data to Problem

Title: NURS 6051 The Application of Data to Problem

The collection of data in healthcare is crucial in improving patient outcomes. Healthcare is ever-changing, with improvements occurring continuously (Laureate Education, 2018). Nurses must be involved in data collection and understand the importance of the interpretation of this data. Then the information can be used to treat patients more effectively, offer a comparison, and give a more tailored plan of care.

ESAS Data Collection

In my current job, we collect data using the Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale (ESAS). The ESAS symptom tool was initially developed in 1991 to gauge symptom burden in palliative/hospice patients (Hui and Bruera, 2016). On each visit with a patient, they are asked to rate nine symptoms on a zero to ten scale, with ten being the worst possible. Symptoms include pain, depression, and shortness of breath, to mention a few. If unable to rate the nurse rates based on observation. Once the data is collected, it is stored in the EHR and can be viewed at any time. The tool is useful mainly for the comparison of symptom reports and the management of those symptoms. For example, the management of a patient’s pain is crucial in hospice care. If pain was reported and the medication regimen changed or increased, the data collected through the ESAS would help determine if the change was effective. This would be seen by a decrease in the rating for pain with each visit. If the data shows the patient is rating pain at the same level or higher, we would know medication adjustments are warranted again. With this data available and knowing how to interpret it, patients can receive the care they deserve.

Nursing is an “information-intensive profession” (McGonigle and Mastrian, 2017). We, as nurses, must collect, process, and use the data collected every day. As nurse leaders, interpreting the data is critical to providing the best care possible. Data collection, interpretation, and use will continue to be a part of nursing that can be used to improve patient outcomes.

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References

Hui, D., & Bruera, E. (2017, March). The Edmonton Symptom Assessment System 25 years later: Past, present, and future developments. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management. Retrieved November 28, 2021, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5337174/

Laureate Education (Producer). (2018). Health Informatics and Population Health: Trends in Population Health [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.

McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. G. (2017). Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge (4th ed., pg.9). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

A Sample Answer 2 For the Assignment: NURS 6051 The Application of Data to Problem

Title: NURS 6051 The Application of Data to Problem

This is insightful. The application of healthcare data is important in improving treatment processes. Healthcare data is important in research and evidence-based practice. The success of healthcare practices depends on the accuracy of methods used in data collection. The ESAS symptom tool is one of the most common methods of data collection; the tool was designed to aid the assessment of nine common symptoms of cancer, including nausea, tiredness, pain, depression, drowsiness, anxiety, wellbeing, appetite, and shortness of breath (Hui & Bruera, 2017). The system has successfully been used by different healthcare organizations to collect and analyze patients’ data. The data collected by this tool can be analyzed to enhance quality improvement processes (Moskovitz et al., 2019). For instance, data on pain can be used to enhance pain management among cancer patients and other patients involved in the treatment processes. The data collected can also be used in the determination of trends of healthcare delivery (Pastorino et al., 2019). From the discussion, one of the questions I would ask is; what types of data are collected by The ESAS symptom tool? How can this data be analyzed to determine trends in healthcare delivery processes?

References

Moskovitz, M., Jao, K., Su, J., Brown, M. C., Naik, H., Eng, L., … & Liu, G. (2019). Combined cancer patient–reported symptom and health utility tool for routine clinical implementation: a real-world comparison of the ESAS and EQ-5D in multiple cancer sites. Current Oncology, 26(6), 733-741. https://doi.org/10.3747/co.26.5297

Pastorino, R., De Vito, C., Migliara, G., Glocker, K., Binenbaum, I., Ricciardi, W., & Boccia, S. (2019). Benefits and challenges of Big Data in healthcare: an overview of the European initiatives. European journal of public health, 29(Supplement_3), 23-27. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckz168

A Sample Answer 3 For the Assignment: NURS 6051 The Application of Data to Problem

Title: NURS 6051 The Application of Data to Problem

I have spent the last 10 years working in emergency rooms as a staff nurse. One of the biggest challenges that my department faces regularly is delays with getting admitted patients out of the ED and onto their assigned units. These delays negatively impact the patients waiting for emergency treatment in the lobby and hallway stretchers. There are a number of factors that can prolong ED length of stay. Some of these include lack of bed availability due to hospital overcrowding, treatment delays such as loss of IV access, and delays caused by hospital personnel during the handoff report process (Paling et. al, 2020). Some of these factors, such as hospital overcrowding, are unavoidable and difficult to work around, which is why it is important for hospitals to assess which factors they can control to expedite patient flow out of the emergency room.

For my hospital’s scenario, the emergency department would collect data about admission delays that are specifically caused by disruptions in the nursing telephone report process. In my current workplace, there is not a standardized electronic handoff form, despite the fact that several studies have demonstrated the efficiency and increased patient safety outcomes associated with the transition to standardized electronic nursing report (Wolak et al., 2020). Instead, the ED nurse calls the receiving unit on the telephone, gives a verbal patient care handoff, and then transfers the patient to their hospital room. By collecting data about where in the handoff process delays are occurring, the ED could try to streamline the handoff process with the medical floors.

The emergency department nurses would collect quantitative data about the length of time between the first attempt to call report to the medical floor, and the time of the patient’s actual departure from the ED. The data would be recorded in the section of the EMR called “time to disposition” for each patient that is admitted. The ED leadership team could then pull a certain number of charts per month (or all the admission charts, if time allowed) and assess how long it takes on average for patient transfer to happen after report. Generally, most hospitals set their goals for disposition time for handoff and transfer within a 30-minute window (Potts et. al., 2018). If there are frequent delays causing transfer time to take greater than 30 minutes, the ED leadership team or unit-based council could meet with leadership from the floors where patient transfer takes the longest. By demonstrating the hard numbers associated with patient care delays, the teams could better understand the factors that lead to admission delays and work together to find solutions that expedite the admissions process.

References:

Paling, S., Lambert, J., Clouting, J., González-Esquerré, J., & Auterson, T. (2020). Waiting times in emergency departments: Exploring the factors associated with longer patient waits for emergency care in England using routinely collected daily data. Emergency Medicine Journal. https://doi.org/10.1136/emermed-2019-208849

Potts, L., Ryan, C., Diegel-Vacek, L., & Murchek, A. (2018). Improving patient flow from the emergency department utilizing a standardized electronic nursing handoff process. JONA: The Journal of Nursing Administration, 48(9), 432–436. https://doi.org/10.1097/nna.0000000000000645

Wolak, E., Jones, C., Leeman, J., & Madigan, C. (2020). Improving throughput for patients admitted from the Emergency Department. Journal of Nursing Care Quality, 35(4), 380–385. https://doi.org/10.1097/ncq.0000000000000462

A Sample Answer 4 For the Assignment: NURS 6051 The Application of Data to Problem

Title: NURS 6051 The Application of Data to Problem

It was great going through your post. Telehealth is a crucial part of our healthcare system, especially with technological advancement in the recent past. I agree with the benefits of telehealth, as your post indicated.It allows access to healthcare information in a swift manner. Technology helped telemedicine reduce congestion in hospitals as patients can easily access information via teleconference. It has also expanded the opportunities for the nurses who interact closely with the patients.
Telemedicine is a sustainable type of healthcare and can open several doors for treatment for patients and practitioners. It saves time, and treatment is convenient and affordable for people who dread visiting the doctor and avoid going to the hospital. In addition, telehealth is helpful in diagnosis, administrative work, and professional and patient education.
A study assessing the effectiveness of telehealth consultations discovered they could improve patient outcomes in certain areas. Telehealth may not help and completely replace traditional office visits — after all, many services and procedures can only be done in person — but it can reduce the need for them. Telehealth effectively reduces the spread of infectious diseases, especially in this Coronavirus (COVID-19) warfare. When other patients have an infectious disease, they can stay home and call their healthcare provider to get treatment. By staying at home, patients do not expose their illnesses to healthcare professionals and other patients. Patients also reduce the chances of contracting an infectious disease from another person or transmitting and spreading their own while using telehealth services.

References

Aggarwal, A. (2017). Telepyschiatry: Current outcomes and future directions. International Journal of Clinical Psychiatry and Mental Health, 5. https://doi.org/10.12970/2310-8231.2017.05.07Links to an external site.

Menage, J. (2020). Why telemedicine diminishes the doctor-patient relationship. BMJ, m4348. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m4348Links to an external site.

Stokel-Walker, C. (2020). Why telemedicine is here to stay. BMJ, m3603. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m3603Links to an external site.

A Sample Answer 5 For the Assignment: NURS 6051 The Application of Data to Problem

Title: NURS 6051 The Application of Data to Problem

Scenario:

A nursing home trach to vent patient comes in to the ER. Their vital signs are a Temperature of 101 F, heart rate of 110, respiratory rate of 24, BP of 85/60. He complains of pain in his back and upon assessment we see a large amount of discharge from his stage 4 sacral wound. Blood work is drawn and white blood cells are greater than 16,000/mm3, with a lactic level of 3. The vital signs are inputted into my charting system, Epic, by the nurse. With Epic, we get an automatic pop-up that due to this patients vital signs, this patient meets sepsis criteria and should be worked up appropriately. When the lab results come back, they are automatically added to epic, which also triggers the sepsis warning. The nurse and provider document their physical assessment, including the stage 4 wound, which along with the sepsis warning pop-up, help us think this may be the source of their infection.

Data collection, Knowledge Derived, Clinical Reasoning:

As you can see from the description of the scenario, data like vital signs, blood work, and a physical assessment are collected and assessed. Knowledge can be derived from that data from our medical knowledge, but as a reminder, the charting system can remind us that a patient meets sepsis criteria. Based on the physical assessment, the nurse can use clinical reasoning and judgement to find the cause of the abnormal vital signs and blood work. The likely diagnosis is sepsis due to a sacral wound. These criteria in the EHR are developed based on evidence-based studies, such as the International Guidelines for Management of Severe Sepsis and Septic Shock (Dellinger et al., 2012). I see this scenario very often when I worked as a medical step-down nurse, where many chronically ill, bed-bound, chronically vented nursing home patients came in.

Supporting Data:

As described by Walden University, very soon artificial intelligence is going to be a great support to medical professionals, where when a patient comes in with a certain complaint, asking a certain set of questions will help diagnose or rule out the most common possible conditions (Walden University, 2018). This does not replace the nurse or physician but certainly supports us in our decision-making, just like how the Epic Sepsis warning helps remind us to keep this diagnosis in mind if the patient meets the initial criteria.

Public Health Informatics professionals are the ones who make it so that an EHR like Epic works between different hospitals, outpatient offices, and more (Public Health Informatics Institute, 2017). For example, I would be able to see that the above patient in my scenario had a recent primary care office visit for a fever 1 week prior, and was discharged on antibiotics. When the provider enters the billing code for sepsis, it is thanks to the work of Informatics professionals that that code can be translated from ICD-10 to another medical billing language, so that everyone including insurance companies are receiving the correct information (Public Health Informatics Institute, 2017).

References:

Walden University, LLC. (Producer). (2018). Health Informatics and Population Health: Trends in Population Health [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Public Health Informatics Institute. (2017). Public Health Informatics: “translating” knowledge for health Links to an external site. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLUygA8Hpfo

Dellinger, Levy, Rhodes, Annane, Gerlach, & Opal. (2012). Surviving Sepsis Campaign: International Guidelines for Management of Severe Sepsis and Septic Shock: 2012. Guideline Central. Retrieved 2022, from http://content.guidelinecentral.com/guideline/get/pdf/3525.