Table of ContentsAdvantages and Disadvantages of a SystemQuality Patient Care and DocumentationUsing Quality Improvement Data Drives to measurable improvementHIPAA and HITECH Security StandardsConclusionThe use of technology in healthcare is not a new concept, but its ever-increasing need and use of technological advancements have had a tremendous impact on healthcare in its together. Health information systems (HIS) have become a major component of using technology to improve quality of care, increase satisfaction, and reduce costs. Although, as with all new advancements and programs, there are downsides. Since the goal of nursing informatics is to improve patient care, continuous monitoring of its advantages and disadvantages on the quality of patient-centered care should be performed. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Advantages and Disadvantages of a System When choosing a new SIS system for a facility, there are four main areas to consider: usability, interoperability, scalability and compatibility. The link between technology and human acceptance and ability to use it, human-computer interaction (HCI), is usability (Acrobatiq, 2019). Simply put, usability is how easy it is for staff to use it. Some benefits include the ability to create records in real time, increase staff productivity, provide immediate patient education and answers to care plan questions, and have all patient information at hand. within reach. Some drawbacks of usability are the ability of staff to find workarounds, lack of training and user confidence, and decreased human-to-human interaction due to nurses not watching from the computer during care and treatment. education, leading to decreased patient satisfaction. Interoperability is the capability of different systems. to work together and the ability of organizations to share information (Mastrian and McGonigle, 2017). In other words, the ability of programs to speak the same language. Imagine going to the emergency room for increasing symptoms of gastrointestinal distress. Treatment is received, you are then discharged and asked to see a gastroenterologist the next day. During this visit, the doctor can retrieve your treatment history, emergency room labs, and the number of times you have been to the emergency room for the same symptoms. As a patient, you didn't have to try to remember what the emergency doctor told you, what medications you were given, or what tests he or she performed. Everything was in your file and reviewed at the start of your appointment, which allowed for a quicker diagnosis. This is a major advantage of interoperability. As a patient, you already don't feel well. Thus, being able to provide faster, patient-centered care increases patient satisfaction, reduces costs, and faster diagnosis improves symptoms and overall health. The main disadvantage of interoperability would be system failures. Outages can be caused by human error, viruses, or power outages that prevent medical equipment and devices from transferring data (Mastrianand McGonigle, 2017). The ability of a system, such as the electronic health record (EHR), to grow with an organization and provide the resources needed to support growth is scalability. The benefit of scalability is the program's ability to remain up-to-date and effective. As new technologies emerge, such as diagnostics and medical devices, patients and doctors follow these advances and want them added to their use. These programs will need space to accommodate anticipated growth. Adding cloud servers is useful and necessary to increase storage across the organization. SISs are very expensive systems that require a lot of time and resources to implement. If the program is not scalable, it could be replaced within a few years, which would lead to a major disadvantage which is the cost. The more upgrades and customizations made within a system, the higher the cost of investment. There is a need to balance current needs with projected growth, which leads to the final area, compatibility. Compatibility is the ability of devices and software to work with each other independently but within the same organization and platform (Acrobatiq, 2017). Doctors having access to patient records to view, add notes, upload images and documents, and place orders from their phones and tablets is a great advantage. Additionally, allowing patients to access personal health information (PHI) with equal ease increases patient satisfaction and encourages them to take a greater role in managing their own health. A system will fail in all areas of usability, interoperability and scalability if it is not compatible with multiple operating systems, networks and platforms such as MAC and Windows and their various versions used such as Microsoft and Linux. This is the major drawback of a system. When these programs are not compatible, frustration increases and redundancies occur, which can lead to workarounds and human errors. Users must be comfortable with various programs, maintain training, username and passwords, and be careful not to overlook or miss data entry from one program to another in mapping. Quality patient care and documentation When all components described above (usability, interoperability, scalability, and compatibility) are addressed. HIS, such as the EHR, can have an immense impact on patient healthcare and significantly improve patient outcomes. Until now, how physicians and patients can use HIS to improve care has been discussed, but little has been discussed about the importance of the EHR for the bedside nurse. To better illustrate this, let's follow a bedside nurse to the admission of a neonatal patient. A nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is informed that a newborn will be admitted shortly. A lot of data needs to be collected to make this admission go smoothly and provide the best care and outcomes for the patient and their family. The newborn does not have a history to review, but the mother does so that the nurse can access her personal health information in the EHR. These records will include the mother's blood type, level of prenatal care, immunization record, medications administered and prescribed at home, laboratory values, associated diagnoses, and gestation and tolerability of the newborn. at work depending ondecelerations on the fetal monitor. All this information is essential to know to prepare for childbirth and anticipate the care that will be necessary. The nurse learns that the mother was initially admitted to rule out HELLP syndrome and is at 34 2/7 weeks gestation. Additionally, she is of advanced maternal age and has completed all her prenatal care, her only medications at home were prenatal vitamins and calcium carbonate, she is up to date on her vaccinations, and she is blood type O+, so RhoGAM injection is not necessary and the newborn is not at risk of ABO incompatibility. After reviewing the mother's vital signs and laboratory tests, the nurse notices an increasing trend in her blood pressure and liver enzymes, which is likely related to the diagnosis of HELLP syndrome. Next, the nurse reviews the mother's Medication Administration Record (MAR) to assess the medications she is currently taking. As expected, the mother is on a magnesium drip to reduce her blood pressure, Ringer's lactate since she is NPO, and received betamethasone 3 hours previously. Based on this data, the nurse can anticipate the neonatologists' orders, certain signs and symptoms of the newborn, and their needs upon arrival at the unit. Due to the size of the newborn, an incubator and warmer are installed, resuscitation equipment and ventilator are gathered and installed according to gestational age, blood tubes are collected for blood tests, Supplies are gathered for central line placement, fluids and an IV poles are also gathered knowing that the infant will be based at NPO on the set order. With maternal magnesium administration, late decelerations on the fetal monitor, and gestational age, the nurse expects the newborn to have decreased muscle tone and decreased respiratory effort, reason for which the fan is assembled. Without the EHR, the nurse would not have had sufficient time to prepare for arrival on the unit as quickly and accurately. The nurse reportedly spent most of that time on the phone trying to gather as much accurate data as possible from the delivery room nurse who was also caring for the mother. The information would have been late and not very detailed. When caring for the neonatal population, speed and efficiency of care are of the utmost importance. Newborns have very little reserves compared to available blood sugar and brown fat to maintain the vital functions of their little bodies. The time lost significantly affects their results and quality of life. After cesarean delivery, admission is called and the infant is activated in the EHR. This now allows the different systems to transfer data such as on-arrival and on-order vital signs, medication analysis, ventilator settings, intravenous fluids administered via the pump, and blood glucose readings. It also allows the care team to activate command sets for the infant. After the hassle of the initial intake and stabilization process, the nurse can now review orders in the EHR to verify they are all complete, log assessments, add notes, activate the nursing care plan, and review diagnostic tests. When changing shifts, the nurse can quickly and efficiently review all of the infant's and mother's histories, orders and results with the arriving nurse, since all data is at hand on one page summary, which is alsoused to help prioritize patient care. This example illustrates many of the benefits of SIS. The ability to view the complete history allowed the nurse to anticipate care needs and prepare, thereby reducing stress on the infant and the care team, thereby improving the overall health of the child. infant. It also reduces waste by only gathering supplies that are expected to be used. Having systems that seamlessly transfer data such as lab values, vital signs, and equipment parameters to the mapping system saves time, reduces errors, and eliminates redundancy, which reduces the overall cost of care. Real-time mapping supports assessment accuracy and family education. Additionally, the use of an HIS standardizes the terminology used, which bridges the gap in communication between healthcare providers (Hawkins, 2014). Using quality improvement data leads to measurable improvement. Quality improvement (QI) includes a combination of quality indicators produced by two major organizations: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and National Nursing Quality Indicators Database ( NDNQI). These initiatives focus on patient safety research following the 2001 release of the Institute of Medicine's "Crossing the Quality Chasm" report, highlighting issues related to the safety and quality of patient care ( Acrobatiq, 2019). The main objective of these two organizations is their main difference. The primary focus of the NDNQI is more on nursing quality and outcomes, while the AHRQ focuses more on hospital and area specific indicators in prevention, hospitalization, patient safety, and pediatrics . In the wake of the focus on health care reform, numerous projects have been underway in the United States with the goal of improving the patient care experience, improving population health, and reduce the cost of health care (Weston & Roberts, 2013). Quality data must be relevant. , timely, thorough, objective, transparent, reproducible and verifiable (Acrobatiq, 2019). HIS have become the standard tool used to collect and analyze data to monitor QA, but nurses must be aware that the information disseminated is only as good as the information entered. It is therefore important to remember data quality when creating records. In the NICU, many trends are monitored, some of these QIs include: central line associated bloodstream infections (CLASBI), urinary tract infections (UTI) related to catheter or diaper maintenance, days admission to neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), the ventilator. -associated pneumonia (VAP), nosocomial infection rates, and breastfeeding versus formula rates, to name a few. Opioid abuse has become a major problem across America and the NAS admission rate has increased exponentially. Neonatologists, caregivers, and hospitals all closely monitor the length of stay (LOS) of these patients due to Medicaid limiting reimbursement to a specific length of stay. The bedside nurse can monitor the infant's Finnegan scores, lifespan, medication weaning schedule, and infant symptoms throughout the EHR. Not only does this aid provide support and care to the infant, such as volunteers to hold, swings, and sound limitations, but it also provides trends.