NURS 8210 Week 5 Assignment Meaningful Use Paper INSTRUCTIONS PLUS RUBRIC -

NURS 8210 Week 5 Assignment Meaningful Use Paper INSTRUCTIONS PLUS RUBRIC

Sample Answer for NURS 8210 Week 5 Assignment Meaningful Use Paper INSTRUCTIONS PLUS RUBRIC Included After Question

Week 6 Assignment: Meaningful Use Paper

Why are many health care organizations hesitant to adopt electronic health records (EHR) when they have the potential to improve quality, increase access, and reduce costs? Some organizations are concerned with the ethical and legal issues that may arise in daily operations. In 2010, legislators noticed health care’s reluctant transition into full EHR integration, and began to provide financial incentives to those organizations that not only adopt EHRs, but also use them meaningfully to improve quality of patient care. As an advanced practice nurse, it is important to be aware of the challenges, policies, and incentives associated with integrating EHR systems. It is also critical that you understand the concept of “meaningful use” and how it plays out in today’s health care organizations.

To prepare:

In this Application Assignment, you analyze meaningful use criteria to determine the authentic legal, financial, and ethical issues that may surround it.

Reflect on the information presented in the Learning Resources, focusing on meaningful use legislation and the “Ethics in Nursing Informatics” section of your course text.
Investigate the legal, financial, and ethical issues surrounding meaningful use.
Ask yourself: What are the goals of meaningful use?

By Day 7 of Week 6

Write a 4- to 5-page essay in which you:

Summarize the legal, financial, and ethical issues that may arise as a result of meaningful use legislation.
Explain how these issues might present barriers to successful implementation within an organization.
Discuss ways that health care organizations can make the most of their electronic health record investments in light of meaningful use.

Explain how EHR-related meaningful use legislation is being implemented in your organization.

A Sample Answer For the Assignment: NURS 8210 Week 5 Assignment Meaningful Use Paper INSTRUCTIONS PLUS RUBRIC

Title: NURS 8210 Week 5 Assignment Meaningful Use Paper INSTRUCTIONS PLUS RUBRIC

Develop the Integrated Testing Plan The need for quality healthcare delivery processes calls for effective approaches in managing patients’ information. Today, healthcare institutions are involved in the use of different techniques to facilitate the management of data and ensure dynamic research processes. Electronic health records are a technological approach applied in most healthcare institutions to facilitate the capture, storage, and general management of data and patient information. The effect application of the EHR system is always associated with the incentive programs involved in the management of databases. For the security of patient information, the management of data and general information is necessary for ensuring success in the operational processes. Databases should always remain secure and free from interference from cyber attackers. Through the use of EHR systems and databases, healthcare providers have been able to maintain the data’s safety and enhance sharing of information during healthcare delivery processes (Kwon & Johnson, 2018). Sharing of information kept in the databases should only be made possible for the healthcare professionals to prevent or stop unauthorized access from malicious individuals. As a result, there is a need for healthcare providers to incorporate effective and secure interoperability. There are different stages of the EHR system or meaningful use in regards to the implementation of technology in the healthcare processes. The purpose of this assignment is to describe the three major stages of meaningful use and their measures.

Meaningful Use

The EHR system is always designed to depend on the data management approaches used by an organization. In other words, the system’s design depends on the types of data to be collected and the level of security required (Shickel et al., 2017). The EHR system is supposed to provide an automated system for ensuring efficiency and easy access to patients’ data. When fully developed and integrated into healthcare, the EHR system can enhance quality management, decision-making support, as well as healthcare outcome reporting. For most healthcare organizations, a fully functional EHR system relies on the ideas behind the implementation process (Zaccagnini, 2019). One of the main pillars of meaningful us is the protection of patient’s information. All the activities undertaken under the EHR system aim at ensuring improved quality, efficiency, and safety of patient’s information or data. The use of the EHR system has also enhanced research and the application of evidence-based practices. Through these systems, healthcare professionals have been able to get data and determine the trends of various diseases.

Meaningful use has created easy and effective ways of sharing information between healthcare providers. Today, most healthcare organizations have adopted the use of interoperability that connects various departments and healthcare providers. The benefits of meaningful use are far-reaching; it provides a complete and accurate information system where caregivers can access the information they need at their fingertips; the system also facilitates the diagnosis of different healthcare problems and provides the best possible care (Gold et al., 2017). Finally, meaningful use has significantly improved the coordination of care as well as patient engagement. With the meaningful use, there has been the reduction of medication errors and facilitation of the processes that leads to a high level of efficiency and speed in the diagnosis and the general healthcare delivery processes. The EHR system facilitates coordination among the healthcare workers; as a result, there has been increased efficiency in the healthcare processes.

NURS 8210 Week 5 Assignment Meaningful Use Paper INSTRUCTIONS PLUS RUBRIC

Stages Involved in the Implementation of Meaningful Use

Stage 1

The implementation of meaningful use should always involve analysis of healthcare information systems, the types of data collected by any given healthcare organization, and interoperability. Stage one is considered to be one of the most critical parts of the EHR system development process. It mainly involves the organization of data and information for ensuring the safety and usability of the data. Through the organization of information, healthcare providers have been able to find it easier to carry out the implementation of subsequent steps of the EHR system. One of the main objectives of the EHR system/meaningful use is the coordination of care through integrating the EHR system with databases; this has always been achieved at stage one through clinical data tracking (Ramaprasad et al., 2020). The process incorporates utilization of data to determine the trends in healthcare quality. The analysis of stage one entirely depends on the security of information as well as success in sharing information.

Challenges and Barriers Faced by Facilities in Implementation of Stage 1

Stage one is an essential stage when implementing meaningful use although it is associated with several challenges of barriers. Temporary loss of productivity in the healthcare delivery processes is one of the problems or challenges found in stage one (Kaye, 2017). The implementation of the new systems in the operational processes usually interrupts the normal operational processes. Besides, healthcare professionals may take longer to adapt to the new environment. Stage one in the implementation process ought to incorporate continuous training processes to develop skills and competency in the use of this new technology. Also, there is the need to prepare healthcare professionals mentally and emotionally to successfully adopt the change process.

Stage 2

In stage two, there is always further integration of e-prescriptions in line with the outcomes of healthcare processes. Stage two mainly involve practices aimed at enhancing sharing of information; for instance, there is always implementation of interoperability to ensure patient’s information can be accessed by different healthcare professionals and healthcare providers. The success of stage two is measured in terms of the information shared through the interconnected networks. Full use of the EHR systems always depend on the success of stage two (Nair & Dreyfus, 2018). The success of stage two in the implementation processes also depends on stage one.

Challenges and Barriers Faced by Facilities in Implementation of Stage 2

The consideration of e-prescription in stage two often makes it very difficult to enhance sharing of information among healthcare providers. Stage two is also associated with the breach of data privacy. Through the integration of e-prescription, the system often becomes vulnerable to attacks due to delays or uninstalled security systems. To overcome these barriers, there is always the need to involve professionals who can apply technical approaches in maintaining the security of the system (Nair & Dreyfus, 2018). The incorporation of e-prescription is associated with high costs as well as the intense training that is required. Most healthcare organization ought to use huge amount of their revenues to ensure success in stage two.

Stage 3

All the activities or processes in stage one and two are actualized in stage three. Besides, this stage involves analyzing and integrating different factors developed in stages one and two. Successful implementation of stage three will ensure that the system operates at maximum efficiency.

Challenges and Barriers Faced by Facilities in Implementation of Stage 3

Stage three mainly involves the integration or incorporation of the processes undertaken in stage one and stage two. Therefore, the problems encountered in these two previous stages may interfere with the implementation processes in stage three. Lack of the essential resources in stage three may also interfere with the successful implementation process. The success of the EHR system or meaningful use can be realized when all the requirements in the three stages are met despite the challenges. Besides, all the stakeholders ought to be considered in the entire process of implementation. They need to be trained on the application of the new systems and how to improve healthcare services with it.

Conclusion

Adherence to the three stages in the implementation of meaningful use may lead to successful outcomes in the healthcare delivery processes and data management. The EHR mainly consists of a range of data that includes medical history, demographics, immunization status, and personal statistics. In the current digital age, every healthcare facility needs to implement the use of the HER system with the aim of facilitating effective care delivery. With the increasing number of patients in the hospitals, the functions and significance of the EHR system remain vital; however, there are several factors that affect the implementation of the technology. Finally, meaningful use has created easy and effective ways of sharing information between healthcare providers. Today, most healthcare organizations have adopted the use of interoperability that connects various departments and healthcare providers.

References

Gold, R., Cottrell, E., Bunce, A., Middendorf, M., Hollombe, C., Cowburn, S., … & Melgar, G. (2017). Developing electronic health record (EHR) strategies related to health center patients’ social determinants of health. The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, 30(4), 428-447. https://www.jabfm.org/content/30/4/428.short

Kaye, S. P. (2017). Nurses’ attitudes toward meaningful use technologies: an integrative review. CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing, 35(5), 237-247. https://journals.lww.com/cinjournal/fulltext/2017/05000/nurses__attitudes_toward_meaningful_use.4.aspx

Kwon, J., & Johnson, M. E. (2018). Meaningful Healthcare Security: Does “Meaningful-Use” Attestation Improve Information Security Performance?. MIS Quarterly, 42(4), 1043-1067. https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.25300/MISQ/2018/13580

Nair, A., & Dreyfus, D. (2018). Technology alignment in the presence of regulatory changes: The case of meaningful use of information technology in healthcare. International journal of medical informatics, 110, 42-51. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1386505617304264

Ramaprasad, A., Syn, T., & Thirumalai, M. (2020). An ontological map for meaningful use of healthcare information systems (Muhis). In HEALTHINF 2014: Proceedings of the International Conference on Health Informatics, Marta Bienkiewicz, Christine Verdier, Guy Plantier, Tanja Schultz, Ana Fred and Hugo Gamboa, eds., SCITEPRESS. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2408850

Shickel, B., Tighe, P. J., Bihorac, A., & Rashidi, P. (2017). Deep EHR: a survey of recent advances in deep learning techniques for electronic health record (EHR) analysis. IEEE journal of biomedical and health informatics, 22(5), 1589-1604. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8086133/

Zaccagnini, M. A. R. Y. (2019). Doctor Of Nursing Practice Essentials: A new model for advanced practice nursing. S.l.: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

A Sample Answer 2 For the Assignment: NURS 8210 Week 5 Assignment Meaningful Use Paper INSTRUCTIONS PLUS RUBRIC

Title: NURS 8210 Week 5 Assignment Meaningful Use Paper INSTRUCTIONS PLUS RUBRIC

Meaningful use refers to an electronic health records (EHR) incentive program, which offers incentive payments for specific healthcare providers to adopt EHR technology in ways that improve patient care. The program encourages eligible providers to use the EHR’s capabilities to arrive at benchmarks that promote improved patient care (CMS, 2017). The meaningful use program has particular requirements that the eligible providers must meet to get the incentive payments. This paper seeks to discuss the legal, financial, and ethical issues that may arise due to meaningful use legislation and how they may hinder the successful implementation of meaningful use in an organization.

Legal, Financial, and Ethical Issues That May Arise As A Result Of Meaningful Use Legislation

Legal issues that can occur during meaningful use legislation include increased legal responsibility and accountability for healthcare providers. Complex electronic-based auditing procedures can point out providers who review or fail to review vital patient information in the EHR (Balestra, 2017). As a result, providers can be sued on the grounds of medical negligence for failing to address priority patient issues. Challenges related to the quality, usability, and reliability of the available EHRs may bring complex legal implications. Most EHR contracts have a ‘hold harmless’ clause which restricts health providers from reporting EHR-related challenges (Balestra, 2017). Furthermore, documentation-related EHR issues may result in legal liabilities. Documentation must be accurate and clear to offer a foundation for every provider to improve patient outcomes (Balestra, 2017). However, electronic documentation that does not meet these principles may result in undesirable outcomes for the provider, patients, families, or the healthcare organization, resulting in legal proceedings.

Financial issues that may occur from meaningful use include unresolved issues on the party that should pay for the implementation and use of the EHR. In most of the current provider reimbursement models, the highest percentage of the EHR monetary benefits go to health care payers instead of those currently financing the EHR implementation (Lite et al., 2020). Health care providers may raise financial concerns about the cost and resources needed to implement and maintain the EHR. The transition costs from paper-based records to EHR documentation are barriers to successful, meaningful use legislation (Lite et al., 2020). The transition is associated with costs to reduce patient load during the transition process, staff training, various technical support charges, and costs to load medical records from paper into the EHR system.

Evidence reveals that EHRs result in unintentional consequences with patient safety implications. EHR usability challenges may result in ethical issues that may need ethical decision-making models to guide health providers on the appropriate actions to promote safe, effective patient care (McBride et al., 2018). The EHR has enhanced portability and accessibility, which raises ethical questions on the ownership of protected health information. Ethical issues may also arise on the health providers’ responsibility to prevent and notify patients of the potential for privacy breaches when using the EHR (McBride et al., 2018). Computer-based breaches on personal health information may result in complex ethical and legal issues on the suitability of the approaches used to address them.

How These Issues Might Present Barriers to Successful Implementation within an Organization

Potential legal, financial, and ethical issues significantly hinder the implementation of meaningful use within a healthcare organization. Legal issues hinder successful, meaningful use implementation since healthcare leaders become concerned about the legal liabilities that EHR implementation may bring to the organization (McBride et al., 2018). The legal fees needed to develop EHR contracts also hinder the successful implementation of meaningful use, especially in small practices (Lite et al., 2020). Financial issues such as limited resources limit organizations from purchasing the EHR, which is a major barrier to implementing meaningful use. Ethical issues related to patient privacy and data integrity bar organizations from implementing meaningful use due to concerns of failing to uphold the HIPAA rule on maintaining patients’ privacy when using the EHR.

Ways That Health Care Organizations Can Make the Most of Their Electronic Health Record Investments In Light Of Meaningful Use

The Meaningful Use program promotes a safer, more efficient way to deliver healthcare services. Health care organizations can make the most of their EHR in view of meaningful use by using it to foster smooth, accurate data-sharing among the healthcare providers and improved quality of care for all patients (Wani & Malhotra, 2018). Organizations can use the EHR to ensure that the providers have access to complete and accurate information, facilitate the diagnosis of health conditions, and provide the best possible patient care. Besides, they can use the EHR to improve care coordination in the organizations (Wani & Malhotra, 2018). With the EHR, information can be shared instantaneously across care organizations, including hospitals, physician offices, and health systems, resulting in better care coordination.

Organizations can use the EHR to increase their patient engagement. The EHR strengthens the capacity of organizations to receive their medical records electronically and share them securely over the Internet. Health organizations can use it to their benefit to encourage patients to take a more active role in managing their health and their families (Wani & Malhotra, 2018). Organizations can also use the EHR to improve patient safety. For instance, they can use the EHR to promote fast electronic access to patient information about allergies, conditions, medications, and treatment history, thus significantly reducing the risk of medical errors (Wani & Malhotra, 2018). Lastly, organizations can use the EHR to promote healthier patient populations and communities by capturing vital data about diseases and outcomes and sharing it with other health professionals locally, regionally, and countrywide.

How EHR-Related Meaningful Use Legislation Is Being Implemented In My Organization

Meaningful legislation is being implemented in my organization through interventions consistent with the 13 Core Objectives and 9 Menu Objectives of stage one (CMS, 2017). Clinicians use computerized provider order entry (CPOE) and clinical decision support (CDS) in making clinical decisions and carry out drug-drug and drug-allergy checks. The organization maintains an updated problem list of current and active diagnoses, an active drug list, and an active medication allergy list for patients. In addition, we have adopted E-Prescribing for the largest percentage of our patients (CMS, 2017). We also implement meaningful use by documenting patients’ demographics, changes in vital signs, and smoking status for patients 13 years and above. Furthermore, the organization offers patients the capacity to view, download, and transmit their health data online.

The organization further implements meaningful use by conducting a security risk analysis to protect electronic health data. Clinicians also provide patients with clinical summaries for their outpatient visits within three business days. It also submits electronic data to immunization registries and electronic syndromic surveillance data to public health agencies (CMS, 2017). Besides, we conduct drug formulary checks and create lists of patients by their specific conditions. We also send reminders to patients for their preventive and follow-up care and provide them with patient-specific education resources. Health providers in the organization implement meaningful use by integrating clinical lab-test results, carrying out medication reconciliation, and recording the summary of care for transitions of care.

Conclusion

Legal issues related to meaningful use can be attributed to complex EHR systems, problems with quality, usability, and reliability of the EHR, and electronic documentation. Financial issues include inadequate resources to purchase and maintain the EHR as well as the transition from paper-based records to EHR. Ethical issues may be related to patient safety and breach of patient privacy. These issues may hinder the successful implementation since organizations become concerned about the legal and ethical liabilities and lack adequate resources to maintain the EHR.

References

Balestra, M. L. (2017). Electronic health records: patient care and ethical and legal implications for nurse practitioners. The Journal for Nurse Practitioners, 13(2), 105-111. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nurpra.2016.09.010

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. (2017). Electronic health records (EHR) incentive programs. Eligible Hospital and Critical Access Hospital Meaningful Use Core Measures: Measure, 6.

Lite, S., Gordon, W. J., & Stern, A. D. (2020). Association of the meaningful use electronic health record incentive program with health information technology venture capital funding. JAMA network open, 3(3), e201402-e201402. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.1402

McBride, S., Tietze, M., Robichaux, C., Stokes, L., & Weber, E. (2018). Identifying and addressing ethical issues with the use of electronic health records. Online J Issues Nurs, 23(1). https://doi.org/10.3912/OJIN.Vol23No01Man05

Wani, D., & Malhotra, M. (2018). Does the meaningful use of electronic health records improve patient outcomes?. Journal of Operations Management, 60, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jom.2018.06.003

Grading Criteria

Document: Week 6 Application 2 Rubric (Word document)

NURS8210 Grading Rubric
Week 6 Application 2: Meaningful Use Paper	Points Possible	Points Earned
You summarized the legal, financial, and ethical issues that may arise because of meaningful use legislation.	4
You explained how these issues might present barriers to successful implementation within an organization.	4
You discussed ways that health care organizations can make the most of their electronic health record investments in light of meaningful use.	4
You explained how EHR-related meaningful use legislation is being implemented in your organization.	3
Spelling, grammar and APA
*Note:* Points may be deducted for grammar, spelling, and/or APA errors.
Points	15
Comments:

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