NURS 6051 Assignment The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies
Sample Answer for NURS 6051 Assignment The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies Included After Question
NURS 6051 Assignment The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies
In the Discussion for this module, you considered the interaction of nurse informaticis with other specialists to ensure successful care. How is that success determined?
Patient outcomes and the fulfillment of care goals is one of the major ways that healthcare success is measured. Measuring patient outcomes results in the generation of data that can be used to improve results. Nursing informatics can have a significant part in this process and can help to improve outcomes by improving processes, identifying at-risk patients, and enhancing efficiency.
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:
- Review the concepts of technology application as presented in the Resources.
- Reflect on how emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence may help fortify nursing informatics as a specialty by leading to increased impact on patient outcomes or patient care efficiencies.
The Assignment: (4-5 pages not including the title and reference page)
In a 4- to 5-page project proposal written to the leadership of your healthcare organization, propose a nursing informatics project for your organization that you advocate to improve patient outcomes or patient-care efficiency. Your project proposal should include the following:
- Describe the project you propose.
- Identify the stakeholders impacted by this project.
- Explain the patient outcome(s) or patient-care efficiencies this project is aimed at improving and explain how this improvement would occur. Be specific and provide examples.
- Identify the technologies required to implement this project and explain why.
- Identify the project team (by roles) and explain how you would incorporate the nurse informaticist in the project team.
- Use APA format and include a title page and reference page.
- Use the Safe Assign Drafts to check your match percentage before submitting your work.
BY DAY 7 OF WEEK 4
Submit your completed Project Proposal.
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- To submit your completed assignment, save your Assignment as WK4Assgn_LastName_Firstinitial
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A Sample Answer For the Assignment: NURS 6051 Assignment The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies
Title: NURS 6051 Assignment The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies
Nursing informatics is gradually changing the face of healthcare. Informatics has introduced technology that enables health providers and organizations to collect, analyze, and leverage information more effectively (Hefner et al., 2019). It has also influenced how health care is delivered, health resources are managed, and health teams function. Informatics has changed nursing practice in various ways, which improve patient outcomes, such as documentation, care coordination, and influencing evidence-based practice. This paper includes a nursing informatics project proposal that I support to improve patient outcomes and is written to my healthcare organization’s leadership.
Project Proposal
The proposed nursing informatics project for our organization is to develop an Integrated Patient Portal for our clients. A patient portal is an online platform where patients and their providers can interact (Griffin et al., 2016). Patients will also use the platform to access their health data, which will enable them to be actively involved in their healthcare management. The patient portal has been widely adopted in health systems in industrialized nations. Hospitals have adopted them to allow their clients to consult their providers, access diagnostic results, update their profiles and insurance provider (Griffin et al., 2016). Besides, the patient portal can be designed to allow patients to schedule clinical appointments and pay hospital bills through the portal system.
An Integrated Patient portal has been selected as the nursing informatics project since patients are increasingly evolving into healthcare consumers. Patients are progressively demanding faster access to their health data and to be engaged in the decision-making process regarding their health (Han et al., 2019). Besides, there is an evolving trend of individuals going online to access a health provider or research a health issue and its treatment. The patient portal will become a natural extension of this evolving practice and enable patients to contact their providers easily. Furthermore, the patient portal will help obtain additional patient information that was not previously captured in a clinical visit as it will allow patients to update their profile (Griffin et al., 2016). This can promote better population health management and an improved way of tracking patient engagement and increase adherence to treatment plans.
Stakeholders Impacted By This Project
Stakeholders who will be impacted by the integrated patient portal project will include patients, physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, insurance providers, and the hospital’s management. Patients will be the most impacted since the project aims to enable them to access their health information, communicate with their providers, and increase their involvement in their healthcare (Han et al., 2019). Physicians, nurse practitioners, and nurses will be impacted since the patient portal will increase their job efficiency and streamline their workflow (Griffin et al., 2016). The portal will make communications with their patients easier, thus increasing efficiency. Besides, the portal will save the time of filling patients’ data as they can do that on their own electronically.
The project will impact insurance providers since patients can use the portal to access their billing information and also change information on the insurance provider without much paperwork. The project is associated with better health outcomes, which means more profits for the insurance provider. Patient portals are associated with increased efficiency in the provision of health services by saving financial resources. Besides, they have the potential of improving information accuracy, reducing duplication, and cutting down on time spent on patient records, payments, and prescription refills (Griffin et al., 2016). Thus, the management will be impacted by this since it will reduce the hospital’s operational costs and increase the organization’s profits.
Patient Outcome the Project Is Aimed At Improving
The project aims at improving health outcomes for patients, particularly those with chronic illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension, heart diseases, and osteoarthritis. According to Griffin et al. (2016), patient-provider communication is a key aspect of improving patient care and health outcomes. The use of portals has been associated with a significant decrease in clinic visits, alterations in treatment, and better adherence to the medication regimen. The project will increase patient-provider interaction by providing an online platform for patients to interact with their providers for consultation purposes (Han et al., 2019). The online consultations through secure messaging will enable patients to make informed decisions about their health and increase their engagement in their health care.
The project aims at including health outcomes for patients with comorbid chronic illnesses by reducing the prevalence of complications, morbidities, and mortalities associated with the diseases. Patients with chronic diseases usually require frequent interactions with their primary providers, which becomes impossible with face-to-face interactions due to lack of time (Hefner et al., 2019). The integrated patient portal will enable these patients to have frequent interactions with their providers at their homes and offices’ comfort. Providers will offer consultation, modify treatments based on symptoms, and provide health education, thus improving the quality of care.
The portal will allow patients and their providers to monitor glycemic levels and blood pressure measurements by updating the daily results. Thus, the provider can make treatment decisions based on this data and provide lifestyle education accordingly (Hefner et al., 2019). For instance, a patient with diabetes can update her daily blood sugar levels, which can help monitor if she is achieving the desired glycemic control. If not achieved, the primary provider can modify the medication by increasing the dose and communicating with the patient via messaging to provide patient education on lifestyle modification.
Technologies Required To Implement the Project
Implementation of the integrated patient portal will require various technologies to enhance its usability. A user-friendly interface will be required]to enable patients to easily access and navigate the portal (Sieck, Hefner & McAlearney, 2018). A Mobile App Combo will be needed to make it possible for users to access the portal health on their mobile devices. Additionally, digital forms will be needed to enable registration workflow by providing a simple and time-efficient method for clients to fill out their details and consents before their appointment (Sieck et al., 2018). API integration will also be required to allow for connection to other third-party digital solutions and medical IoT devices, such as glucose monitors, step counters, and sleep trackers. Encrypted messaging will be needed to facilitate secure, asynchronous, direct communications through messaging between a client and the primary care provider (Hefner et al., 2019). Furthermore, streamlined payment technologies will be required to facilitate billing queries, e-payments, insurance support, payment history, and retrieval (Sieck et al., 2018). These features will enable the organization to monitor and manage patient collections to boost recovery rates.
The Project Team
The project team will consist of a project manager, website developer, health informaticist, and a clinician. The project manager’s roles will be to manage the project daily, coordinate activities, and facilitate communication in the project team. The website developer will play a key role in designing the portal and ensuring a friendly user interface to ensure patients can easily access the portal (Kildea et al., 2019). The health informaticist will bring expert knowledge of an ideal patient portal’s operations and workflow and how it should be designed to meet the desired goal. Besides, the informaticist will ensure that the HIPAA regulations are taken into account during portal development to ensure the privacy of patients’ health data (Kildea et al., 2019). The clinician will give input on how the portal should be designed to provide patients with the best provider-patient interaction and the features that can improve the patient experience.
The nurse informaticist will be incorporated into the team to provide expert knowledge on the essential features of the portal that will increase patient engagement and patient outcomes. This will ensure that the project is a success by meeting all its goals. Besides, the nurse informaticist will be involved in educating patients on how to use the portal as well as health providers on the basics of the portal.
Conclusion
The proposed informatics project for our organization is an integrated patient portal. The subthemes of the project include information sharing and communication and patient engagement. The portal will enable patients to interact with their providers and access information, thus improving outcomes and increasing their engagement. The stakeholders who will be impacted include patients, practitioners, nurses, insurance providers, and the management team. Technologies required for implementation include a user interface, mobile app combo, digital forms, API integration, encrypted messaging, and streamlined payments. The project team will consist of a project manager, web developer, clinician, and health informaticist.
References
Griffin, A., Skinner, A., Thornhill, J., & Weinberger, M. (2016). Patient Portals: Who uses them? What features do they use? And do they reduce hospital readmissions?. Applied clinical informatics, 7(2), 489–501. https://doi.org/10.4338/ACI-2016-01-RA-0003
Han, H. R., Gleason, K. T., Sun, C. A., Miller, H. N., Kang, S. J., Chow, S., Anderson, R., Nagy, P., & Bauer, T. (2019). Using Patient Portals to Improve Patient Outcomes: Systematic Review. JMIR human factors, 6(4), e15038. https://doi.org/10.2196/15038
Hefner, J. L., MacEwan, S. R., Biltz, A., & Sieck, C. J. (2019). Patient portal messaging for care coordination: a qualitative study of perspectives of experienced users with chronic conditions. BMC family practice, 20(1), 57. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12875-019-0948-1
Kildea, J., Battista, J., Cabral, B., Hendren, L., Herrera, D., Hijal, T., & Joseph, A. (2019). Design and development of a person-centered patient portal using participatory stakeholder co-design. Journal of medical Internet research, 21(2), e11371. https://doi.org/10.2196/11371
Sieck, C. J., Hefner, J. L., & McAlearney, A. S. (2018). Improving the patient experience through patient portals: Insights from experienced portal users. Patient Experience Journal, 5(3), 47-54.https://pxjournal.org/journal/vol5/iss3/8
A Sample Answer 2 For the Assignment: NURS 6051 Assignment The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies
Title: NURS 6051 Assignment The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies
Success in health care industry is often measured through patient outcomes. This metric is vital in ensuring that the available practices and procedures are efficient and also help in recognizing the ones that are not effective. Nonetheless, measuring patient outcomes is always associated with big data sets that are utilized to enhance these results in several ways. In turn, health informatics can play crucial role in this process. For instance, informatics can help in appropriately gathering, assessing, and leveraging the data, which can be used to enhance processes, improve efficiency, identify patients who are at risk, and advance research in an effort to enhance patient outcomes. Moreover, McGonigle & Mastrian (2017) argue that informatics has led to emergence of new technologies in clinical practice such as smart pumps, electronic health records, wearables, bar-code medication administration systems, and smartphones which are designed to enhance efficiency, foster safety, and streamline nursing practice. As such, it is imperative for nurses to have informatics competency to help them fostering effective communication, mitigating medical errors, managing knowledge, and supporting point of care decision making (Glassman, 2017). It is against this backdrop that this paper will explore use of electronic health records (EHR) as the proposed nursing informatics project to improve patient outcomes and care efficiencies.
Description of the Project
EHRs connote the digital adaption of patient paper based health records. The initiative has been proposed to address the issues that arise from the paper-based health records such as duplication, errors in drug administration, loss of records, mistaken identity, making of uninformed clinical decisions, and inefficient billing (Kruse et al., 2017). Since the health care environment is consistently changing and becoming highly competitive, the adoption of the EHRs can play a vital role in leveraging the patient care delivery and enhance the competitive capability of the care organization. Given the vital role that EHRs play in health care, Glassman (2017) calls for the meaningful use of EHRs. This involves sharing the data with patients and engaging them in their care within the frameworks of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Moreover, crucial patient care devices including vital sign monitors, cardiac monitors, and I.V. infusion pumps can be connected to EHRs to enhance the capacity of initiative and further improve patient outcomes (Glassman, 2017). Essentially, the use of EHRs is also supported by the American Nurses Association who calls for universally recognized terminologies among its members to support nursing practice within the EHR solutions (American Nurses Association, 2018).
Stakeholders
Clinicians
Clinicians encompass health care providers such as physicians, nurses, and pharmacists et cetera who take center stage in patient care provision. Therefore, EHR implementation will help them to access accurate and updated patient records to enable them provide the best diagnosis and treatment to realize positive patient outcomes.
The Management
This is the key stakeholder who can either ensure the success of the project or its failure. A good management should provide all necessary support required for change and ensure that the project aligns with the expectations of other players. The success of the project will enhance the health setting’s reputation as an affordable, quality health care provider.
The Patients
This is the primary stakeholder for implementing the EHR project. All the EHR endeavors are designed to improve the outcomes for patients and so, the project is designed to benefit the patients. Essentially, the success of the project will be measured based on the outcomes of the patients.
Front Office Staff
The staff at the front office plays a vital role in EHR implementation because they are tasked with key responsibility of feeding critical patient information including medical history, demographic, billing, and contact information into the EHR system. Any inappropriate entry in the system may lead to adverse impacts for patients.
EHR Vendors
EHR vendors are expected to design flexible systems that can meet the expectation of the organization, failure to which, the project will face eminent fall.
Patient Outcomes or Patient-Care Efficiencies
The implementation of EHRs will ensure enhancement of patient outcomes through provision of quality care. EHRs ensure provision of real-time, patient-oriented health data that are availed instantly and safely to the authorized users. Moreover, apart from providing medical and treatment history of the patient, EHRs also enable wider options of patient care due to its capability of accessing evidence-based care practice tools that can help providers to make informed decisions at the point of care. In addition, EHRs enables real-time point of care communication, which is essential in avoiding time wasted in peruse manual health records. Ultimately, the implementation of EHRs will lead to positive patient outcomes such as quality of health care, patient-centered care, reduction in hospital stays, and reductions in health care costs (Wani & Malhotra, 2018).
Technologies Required for the Project
Technology is a vital requirement in optimization of EHR. The project will require a standard server to join together with the rest of the system in the health care setting. The available computers will be utilized in EHR system, but they will be upgraded with the current operating system. To address compatibility issues, EHR system will be updated to be compatible with OS and windows. Moreover, the IT experts will be required to conduct training among the stakeholders to create awareness on how the system operates and the kind of processes that will be needed in every stage. Other technological requirements include application of virtual assistants to help in documentation, improving the interoperability through artificial intelligence, and optimizing the interface of EHR to increase usability.
The Project Team
The Project Manager
The project manager (PM) is one of the key members of the project team. The PM is expected to be technologically savvy and experienced in EHR implementation. The PM is tasked with responsibilities of overseeing the overall success of the project including attaining requirements and realizing deadlines for the implementation of the new EHR system (Vant, 2020).Moreover, the PM links various phases of the project to sophistically integrate and work together. The PM is also expected to facilitate the processes of planning, developing, designing, implementing, and testing phases of EHR to ensure they coordinate their effects to realize the desired goal of the project.
Physicians
Physicians are tasked with important responsibilities in EHR project including creating goals for the EHR implementation, identifying the best EHR vendor, trail staff satisfaction, address clinical needs, assess and select technology, defining the scope of the project and establishing budget, anticipate the profitability and check the progress, and to monitor the effect of the EHR on productivity.
Clinicians
Clinicians are expected to play a role of evaluating clinical workflows and propose changes, scrutinizing the clinical usability of the EHR software, and validating the descriptions of future clinical workflow. Moreover, clinicians can potentially work alongside EHR vendor to address any issue and also champion for the project among colleagues.
IT Experts
The IT professionals have responsibilities of evaluating software and hardware requirements, deal with or supervise system maintenance or upgrades, run system testing and go-live, and coordinate support and service for the system. The IT experts may also collaborate with the vendor for trouble shooting and also act as project manager.
Office Manager
The office manager is responsible for appraising the routine usability of EHR software, managing the change from paper-based records to digital records, help in overseeing system training, managing integration with supporting software such as back-office applications, recognize data transformation and reporting needs, and supervise EHR integration with legacy technology.
Front Office Staff
During the project implementation, the front office staff are tasked with various responsibilities including data entry to facilitate billing and coding, routine change from normal paper records to EHR data, use and testing crucial functions including scheduling, documentation of patient records such as insurance authorization, confirm data swap with pharmacies and other vendors, and recording any hitches or incompatibility in routine operations.
Essentially, engaging the project team is crucial in integrating all the features that are required in different stages and departments ranging from patient visit to the treatment process. Regarding the role of nurse informaticist, McGonigle & Mastrian (2017) postulate that they play a vital role of gathering and analyzing complex patient data and diffusing to different concerned stakeholders within the EHR system. Moreover, nurse informaticists also initiative system changes and improvement alongside IT experts to ensure quality service provision.
References
American Nurses Association. (2018). Inclusion of recognized terminologies supporting nursing practice within electronic health records and other health information technology solutions. Retrieved from https://www.nursingworld.org/practice-policy/nursing-excellence/official-position-statements/id/Inclusion-of-Recognized-Terminologies-Supporting-Nursing-Practice-within-Electronic-Health-Records/
Glassman, K. S. (2017). Using data in nursing practice. American Nurse Today, 12(11), 45–47. Retrieved from https://www.americannursetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/ant11-Data-1030.pdf
Kruse, C. S., Mileski, M., Vijaykumar, A. G., Viswanathan, S. V., Suskandla, U., & Chidambaram, Y. (2017). Impact of electronic health records on long-term care facilities: systematic review. JMIR medical informatics, 5(3), e35.
McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. G. (2017). Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge (4th ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Vant, A. (2020). Four Crucial Members of an EHR Implementation Team. Ehrinpractice.com. Retrieved 11 June 2020, from https://www.ehrinpractice.com/four-crucial-members-of-an-ehr-implementation-team-154.html.
Wani, D., & Malhotra, M. (2018). Does the meaningful use of electronic health records improve patient outcomes?. Journal of Operations Management, 60, 1-18.
Rubric
| NURS_5051_Module02_Week04_Assignment_Rubric | ||||||
| Criteria | Ratings | Pts | ||||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeIn a 4- to 5-page project proposal written to the leadership of your healthcare organization, propose a nursing informatics project for your organization that you advocate to improve patient outcomes or patient care efficiency. Your project proposal should include the following:· Describe the project you propose.· Identify the stakeholders impacted by this project. |
|
25 pts | ||||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning Outcome· Explain the patient outcome(s) or patient-care efficiencies this project is aimed at improving.· Explain how this improvement would occur. Be specific and provide examples. Use sufficient supporting evidence in your response. |
|
25 pts | ||||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning Outcome· Identify the technologies required to implement this project and explain why.· Identify the project team (by roles) and explain how you would incorporate the nurse informaticist in the project team. |
|
25 pts | ||||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeResources |
|
10 pts | ||||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeWritten Expression and Formatting – Paragraph Development and Organization:Paragraphs make clear points that support well developed ideas, flow logically, and demonstrate continuity of ideas. Sentences are carefully focused–neither long and rambling nor short and lacking substance. |
|
5 pts | ||||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeWritten Expression and Formatting – English writing standards:Correct grammar, mechanics, and proper punctuation |
|
5 pts | ||||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeWritten Expression and Formatting – APA:The paper follows correct APA format for title page, headings, font, spacing, margins, indentations, page numbers, parenthetical/in-text citations, and reference list. |
|
5 pts | ||||
| Total Points: 100 | ||||||