DQ1
Technology has become a vital part of healthcare delivery. Wireless mobile devices allow patients to communicate with their doctors virtually, and keep track of their labs and diagnostic test results through a portal. Remote patient monitoring (RPM) is expected to be an important advancement in the future of healthcare, especially for the treatment of patients with chronic diseases (Buchholz et al. 2016). RPM will allow health professionals to receive timely information about the patient’s health, and is expected to improve the accuracy and speed of diagnosis. Patient information systems like a portal, make it possible for transfer of information from one source to another easily. In addition, applications are being developed that make it easier for doctors to access professional literature, and educational projects straight from the internet (Floyd et al., 2014). Today in the US, the health care industry is seen as one of the most promising areas for the introduction of mobile technology. Using innovative technologies can save money spent on maintaining health care systems, and reduce the cost of repeated hospitalization.
For my capstone project, I plan on using educational videos on tablets to help facilitation patient discharge education. I will use the status translating system to virtually translate all discharge education information into their language, I will also use the hospital computer to provide information to the patient on their medications and diet. Follow up with their provider after discharge can be completed with RPM.
Buchholz, A., Perry, B., Weiss, L. B., & Cooley, D. (2016). Smartphone use and perceptions among medical students and practicing physicians. Journal of Mobile Technology in Medicine, 5(1), 27-32.
Floyd, C. N., Parmesar, K., & Ferro, A. (2014). Monitoring of hypertension using smartphone applications: A systematic review. Canadian Journal of Cardiology, 30(10), S213.
DQ2
Healthcare technology is used to improve delivery of safe patient care by providing tools for early diagnosis, ongoing monitoring, and treatment of patients. This technology includes bedside physiological monitors, pulse oximeter devices, electrocardiogram machines, bedside telemetry, infusion pumps, ventilators, and electronic health records (Schoville & Titler, 2015). One technology that can be implemented from my capstone project is the electronic health record (EHR). The EHR is a documentation tool that yields data useful in enhancing patient safety, evaluating care quality, maximizing efficiency, and measuring staffing needs. It is also a tool to study appropriate nurse staffing and to gauge or predict staffing needs. Documentation of nursing care in the HER directly influence patient safety as it facilitates real-time communication among all healthcare providers.
While considering ways to reduce the nurse workload, I found recommendations for Improving documentation. Nursing-sensitive medication administration data can be digitalized and synchronized in the EHR. This will combine bar code medication administration technology at the point of care with real-time medication surveillance of therapeutic goal attainment, enhanced adverse drug-event alerts, and adverse event-surveillance information. Bar code data could be used to do more than identify the patient and report medication administration doses, the additional synchronization of information would broaden the scope of the medication-administration patient safety zone. This would give nurses more efficient access to information which the nurse actually uses when administering medications. Additional information, triggered by the bar code, might help the nurse to: Identify and evaluate the appropriateness of the drug dose and route, given the drug’s specific therapeutic goal and respond to an enhanced, real-time medication contraindication/drug interaction check with the EHR, by linking the drug on the same screen with the most recent, clinically relevant laboratory values (Lavin, Harper, & Barr, 2015).
For example, if a low serum potassium value were to appear, it would prompt the nurse to request a supplement for the patient receiving a thiazide. It is important to note that the nurse currently takes these steps manually in a time-consuming process, searching for the potassium values while preparing the drug for administration. The electronic process being recommended can be both more efficient and safer. Electronic medication records (eMARs) should also include trending of medications along with clinically relevant laboratory values, to keep busy nurses from having to retrieve the labs from another flow sheet in the EHR. In each of these examples, the data were already contained within the EHR; they simply needed to be connected in a nurse-and-patient-safety-sensitive manner (Lavin, Harper, & Barr, 2015).
Lavin, M., Harper, E., Barr, N., (2015). Health Information Technology, Patient Safety, and Professional Nursing Care Documentation in Acute Care Settings. The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing Vol. 20 No. 2. Retrieved from https://ojin.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/ANAMarketplace/ANAPeriodicals/OJIN/TableofContents/Vol-20-2015/No2-May-2015/Articles-Previous-Topics/Technology-Safety-and-Professional-Care-Documentation.html
Schoville, R., & Titler, M. (2015). Guiding healthcare technology implementation: A new integrated technology implementation model. CIN: Computer, Informatics, Nursing; 33(3):99-107. Retrieved from https://www.nursingcenter.com/cearticle?an=00024665-201503000-00004