Implementing a New EHR Assignment

Implementing a New EHR Assignment

Implementing a New EHR Assignment

Over the years, health care organizations have integrated multiple components into health care delivery to achieve better patient care. Innovation, data, science, and technology dominate the current nursing practice. As the practice evolves, health care professionals are encouraged to evolve proportionately to ensure that patients receive care that meets their needs. A crucial part of this evolution involves designing and implementing new electronic health record (EHR) systems to address current and situational needs. In this case, they should be committed to identifying opportunities for tracking care improvement and responding appropriately. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate an opportunity for tracking care improvement and discuss the process of adopting a new EHR system.

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The Opportunity and Key Information in the Database

Patients are usually diagnosed and treated for lifestyle diseases by primary care providers. The implication is that they typically present themselves for medication help when symptoms are clear. However, a significant proportion of the population is at a high risk of lifestyle diseases due to increased sedentary living, unregulated consumption of fatty and sugary foods, and other triggers (Nurwanti et al., 2018). The increased risk prompts a proportionate increase in patients with lifestyle diseases in health care settings. A high number of patients increase the workload and disease management costs. A perfect opportunity for tracking care improvement is assessing the risk of all patients upon triage. An EHR system would facilitate this process by collecting the necessary data for risk assessment according to patients’ lifestyles. Primary care nurses or physicians would immediately share the data to facilitate proactive response as patients receive medication help for other conditions.

Health care professionals make informed decisions if they have adequate information about the patient’s overall health. The most needed information in the database is the patient’s risk level for lifestyle diseases. Upon triage, the triage nurse will conduct a lifestyle diagnosis about the patient’s eating behaviors, activity level, sleep habits and quality, and risk factors such as smoking and alcoholism to help rate the overall risk. Other important data include the patient’s demographics, attitudes, education level, and support system to guide health care providers in determining the most appropriate intervention.

Role of Informatics in Data Capturing and Project Management Strategies

Informatics has grown to be a critical component of the evolving nursing practice. Alexander et al. (2019) described informatics as integrating computer, nursing, and analytical sciences to acquire, process, and study patient data. In capturing information, informatics enables health care professionals to capture and store data instantly and safely. It saves time by replacing manual systems with electronic data collection, collation, and analysis systems. Besides the timely capture, crucial patient care data can be captured in different formats. For instance, audio information can be transcribed and videos recorded as situations demand.

Various project management strategies and methodologies can be implemented to support informatics initiatives. For instance, risk management dominates project management as project managers analyze potential risks and appropriate response measures (Sipes, 2020). Assessing patients’ risk of lifestyle diseases to intervene before illness development typifies risk management. The other risk management strategies for supporting informatics initiatives include communication, planning, and team management. Health care teams should actively communicate to identify problems hampering patient care and collaborate to develop innovative solutions. Planning involves identifying the scope of a project and critical components such as timeframe (Sipes, 2020). Nurses implementing a new EHR system should be sure about the system’s components, stakeholders needed, completion dates, and other planning essentials. Identifying stakeholders and breaking down the work required into manageable components is part of team management.

Systems and Staff Members and the Role of the Advanced Registered Nurse

Multiple systems and staff members would be involved in designing and implementing the new EHR system. Software and hardware components and an operating system to support the system’s features will be required. In the design phase, a system analyst or a designer would be needed to advise the facility regarding the capacity and features, such as the layout and interface of the new system. Staff members are mainly the organization’s management, members of the information technology department, and end-users (nurses and physicians). They should collaborate to ensure that the system is interoperable, user-friendly, and secure. Other roles include proposing themes, layout, and other system properties.

The role of the advanced registered nurse in promoting EBP and leading quality and performance improvement initiatives within this setting is critical. As Newland (2018) stated, such nurses should promote visible changes in health care through leadership, knowledge, and skills. They play the same role in this setting. Through leaders’ support, nurses identify quality and performance improvement opportunities and find evidence-based solutions. Such opportunities include addressing issues hampering patient care and integrating emerging practices and innovative technologies into routine care to improve health outcomes. Advanced registered nurses interact with patients daily, observe and evaluate the workplace, and have massive experience in health and patient needs. They use both the learned (classroom concepts) and acquired knowledge (practice experience) to promote EBP and guide performance improvement in the setting.

Strategies for Implementing the New EHR Proposal

Implementing a new EHR involves process and system changes. The first step is to inform the system users about the anticipated changes in workplace routine and care processes. Secondly, the implementation team will collaborate to design and test the new EHR system to ensure that it has all the desired features. End users will then be trained on its use, features, benefits, and risks, among other components. The last step will be transitioning to the new EHR and progressively evaluating areas that can be improved to achieve better results. Target areas include speed, vulnerabilities, and capacity.

Professional, Ethical, and Regulatory Standards

The system’s design and implementation should adhere to many standards. Professional standards include user-friendliness and uniformity. User-friendliness decreases the chances of errors and ensures that the system is easier to access and information is easy to interpret. Uniformity implies all professionals use the same system. Ethical standards include beneficence and non-maleficence. Beneficence denotes actions that benefit others, while non-maleficence is about avoiding harm (Varkey, 2021). Beneficence can be attained through a system that reduces medical errors, enhances efficiency, and ensures that patients receive holistic care. Non-maleficence can be achieved by securing the EHR system appropriately and ensuring it is only accessible to authorized users. Regulatory standards include compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) privacy rule that establishes mechanisms for protecting identifiable health information in electronic systems (Alexander et al., 2019). The new EHR system should have appropriate physical and technical safeguards.

Measuring Success and Ensuring Continuous Quality Improvement

It is important to evaluate the success of EHR implementation to ensure that it can guarantee continuous quality improvement in practice. From a staff perspective, the new system should enable health care professionals to collaborate in assessing patients at risk of lifestyle diseases and assist with appropriate interventions at the earliest possible. It should improve how they respond to illness and overall disease management in the facility. Other benefits include improved communication and better interprofessional collaboration. Preventing lifestyle diseases or controlling their development would benefit the setting massively. In 2018, health care spending in the United States was estimated to be $3.6 million, and spending on chronic diseases consumed approximately 75% of the overall expenditure (Edington et al., 2020; Raghupathi & Raghupathi, 2018). Proactive management of lifestyle diseases would reduce such spending by reducing the number of patients visiting the facility for medication help. Patients would benefit from counseling, health education, surveillance, medication, and other strategies for effective interventions for disease development.

Leadership Skills and Theories to Facilitate Collaboration

Leaders’ decision-making and influence are critical to successful change in health practice. Leaders should be adequately skilled and visionary to facilitate interprofessional collaboration and enable teams to work as a unit. Essential leadership skills for interprofessional collaboration include common purpose, commitment, and mutual respect (Folkman et al., 2019). Common purpose ensures that the entire team works together without conflicts towards the same goal. Commitment helps the team achieve the desired goals timely, while mutual respect makes the team members feel secure (Folkman et al., 2019). The transformational theory would be needed to facilitate collaboration with the interprofessional team and provide evidence based, patient-centered care. Transformational theory’s central tenet is that leaders should envision the desired outcome and develop mechanisms to realize the outcome via inspirational cultural change (Chu et al., 2021). As a result, the interprofessional would be inspired towards achieving the desired vision, keeping the team together throughout the transformation period.

Conclusion

Progressive health care delivery requires a commitment to change and evolving as time advances. Since the current practice evolves continuously, advanced registered nurses and other professionals should be at the center of practice change in their respective settings. As discussed in this paper, a new EHR system would help to improve health outcomes from staff, setting, and patient dimensions. It would help to reduce the number of patients with lifestyle diseases visiting the facility through proactive disease management. For better outcomes, the system should be user-friendly, secure, and highly interoperable to facilitate information sharing.

References

Alexander, S., Frith, K. H., & Hoy, H. (Eds.). (2019). Applied clinical informatics for nurses (2nd ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Chu, H., Qiang, B., Zhou, J., Qiu, X., Yang, X., Qiao, Z., … & Yang, Y. (2021). The impact of transformational leadership on physicians’ performance in China: A cross-level mediation model. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 351. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.586475

Edington, D. W., Burton, W. N., & Schultz, A. B. (2020). Health and economics of lifestyle medicine strategies. American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, 14(3), 274–277. https://doi.org/10.1177/1559827620905782

Folkman, A. K., Tveit, B., & Sverdrup, S. (2019). Leadership in interprofessional collaboration in health care. Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare, 12, 97–107. https://doi.org/10.2147/JMDH.S189199

Newland, J. A. (2018). A closer look at the DNP degree. Nurse Practitioner, 43(4), 6. doi: 10.1097/01.NPR.0000531068.03935.1c

Nurwanti, E., Uddin, M., Chang, J. S., Hadi, H., Syed-Abdul, S., Su, E. C., Nursetyo, A. A., Masud, J., & Bai, C. H. (2018). Roles of sedentary behaviors and unhealthy foods in increasing the obesity risk in adult men and women: A cross-sectional national study. Nutrients, 10(6), 704. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu10060704

Raghupathi, W., & Raghupathi, V. (2018). An empirical study of chronic diseases in the United States: A visual analytics approach. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 15(3), 431. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15030431

Sipes, C. (2020). Project management for the advanced practice nurse (2nd ed.). Springer Publishing.

Varkey, B. (2021). Principles of clinical ethics and their application to practice. Medical Principles and Practice, 30(1), 17-28. https://doi.org/10.1159/000509119

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One way informatics can be especially valuable is in capturing data to inspire improvements and quality change in practice. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) collects data related to adverse events and safety concerns. If you are working within a practice setting to implement a new electronic health record (EHR) system, this is just one of the many considerations your team would need to plan for during the rollout process.

In a paper of 1,500-1,750 words, discuss the following:

Consider an opportunity for tracking care improvement. What key information would be needed in the database? Example: Time lapse from medication order documented in the EHR to delivery of medication to the patient for the cardiology service.
Describe the role informatics plays in the ability to capture this data. What type of project management strategies and methodologies can be implemented to support informatics initiatives to help improve quality within the clinical practice?
Discuss which systems and staff members would need to be involved in the design and implementation process. What is the role of the advanced registered nurse in promoting evidence-based practice and leading quality and performance improvement initiatives within this setting?
Outline strategies for implementing the new EHR proposal. Consider communication changes, transitioning to the new EHR, and managing resources (human, fiscal, and health care resources).
Discuss what professional, ethical, and regulatory standards must be incorporated into the design and implementation of the system.
Describe the measures and steps you would take to evaluate the success of the EHR implementation from a staff, setting, and patient perspective to measure effectiveness and ensure continuous quality improvement in practice?
Explain what leadership skills and theories would be needed to facilitate collaboration with the interprofessional team and provide evidence-based, patient-centered care?
You are required to cite five to 10 sources to complete this assignment. Sources must be published within the last 5 years and appropriate for the assignment criteria and nursing content.