Introduction
Healthcare organizations are striving to improve the quality of patient care and ensure patient safety. Consequently, the efforts to improve the efficiency of providing care while ensuring safety have led to integrating clinical expertise with technology. For instance, Honey et al. (2017) posited a need for nurses to have nursing informatics competencies to provide safe, quality, and affordable nursing care in a technology-driven world. For this reason, it is necessary to design a nursing informatics project for use by my organization, identify stakeholders impacted by the project, explain the patient outcome and care efficiencies, identify requisite technologies, and project team.
Nursing Informatics Project
Technology has revolutionized every sector of the economy, and the healthcare sector is not an exception. Therefore, I initiate a modality that the organization can adopt to utilize information technology to provide care to patients. Baker and Stanley (2018) highlighted telemedicine as a technology system to connect patients with healthcare providers remotely. For this reason, nurses can apply telemedicine to offer cost-effective patient care. The technology is suitable for patients with chronic illnesses such as hypertension and diabetes. The nurses can comfortably attend to their clinical needs while in the comfort of their homes. Subsequently, the system is designed to have software that links patients at home to the electronic medical record system. Therefore, nurses can use technology to provide less expensive patient care.
The application of technology to provide patient care should not compromise safety and quality at the expense of cost. The system creates a virtual admission to store a database of patients with chronic illnesses at home. Consequently, healthcare providers will have digital devices so that the patient or caregiver can take measurements like blood pressure and blood sugar. The patients can then automatically relay the recordings to the nurse’s smartphones with an installed application that notifies them. Subsequently, the nurse can access the patients’ electronic medical records while communicating with the clinical team, including the physician, to make a clinical decision.
Moreover, the patient can use the video conferencing component of the system to contact the nurse. Therefore, the nurse can assess the patient. Collectively, the readings from the measuring devices and the nurse’s assessment enable the nurse to create an accurate clinical picture and make an informed clinical decision to advise the patient accordingly. Therefore, virtual admission, recorded measurements, and clinical assessment via video conferencing ensure safe and quality patient care.
Key Stakeholders
The project’s success depends on several parties in the clinical setup. Key stakeholders include the hospital management, the hospital’s information technology (IT) team, and the clinical team. The clinical team comprises the patients, nurses, physicians, laboratory personnel, therapists, and pharmacists. Consequently, the nurse informaticist provides integrated clinical expertise and technology use in patient care. The hospital management appropriates funds to finance the project to ensure its success.
Moreover, the hospital management provides leadership to ensure the success of the project. The success will leverage the IT team’s expertise to advise on the best electronic devices and install the needed software since it is a technology-driven project. At the core of the project, the patient enjoys benefits from the project through provided remote care. Besides, the clinical team comprising the nurse, physicians, physiotherapists, and laboratory personnel will utilize the technology to deliver safe, high-quality, and cost-effective patient care.
Patient Outcome Improvement
Innovative technologies have transformed healthcare, so the project aims to refine the quality of patient care through improved patient satisfaction. Telemedicine ensures that patients can communicate with the clinical team and receive medical interventions without traveling to the health facility. Consequently, the patients can save on time and transportation costs to health facilities. Appuswamy and Desimone (2020) found that telehealth services significantly reduced the cost of diabetes care, including the reliance on Medicaid and reimbursement by medical insurance companies. Therefore, the project will help save patients from hospital admission, hence, reducing the cost of healthcare services.
Patient and nurse satisfaction is imperative for the project’s success. Telemedicine ensures that nurses in collaboration with patients continuously monitor the clinical progress. For instance, the system provides that the patients monitor blood sugar or blood pressure and communicate the findings to the nurse. Consequently, the nurse can intervene accordingly in consultation with physicians. Appuswam and Desimone (2020) established that nurses’ and endocrinologists’ telemedicine consultations improved blood sugar control among patients. Subsequently, the satisfaction of nurses and patients increased. For this reason, the project will refine patients’ clinical outcomes leading to improved nurses’ and patients’ contentment.
Technologies Required to Implement the Project
The project will require the necessary infrastructure to enable seamless patient care. A key technology is the existing Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system. Clinical decisions concerning the patient will require the integration of patient assessment with the past medical history. Therefore, the EMR will provide crucial medical information about the patient to guide clinical decision-making. Moreover, patients and nurses will need to have smartphones with internet access. The smartphones will have internet access via the Hospital server. Besides, the phones will have installed telemedicine application that enables the patient to log in and communicate with the nurse or receive medical instructions.
Furthermore, electronic medical devices such as glucometers will be automated to convey findings to the nurse as soon as measurements are done. Equally, the nurses’ smartphones enable them to receive alerts from the patient anytime they communicate with them or take readings such as blood sugar, blood pressure, or temperature. Moreover, the telemedicine application will be installed on the clinical team’s smartphones with the nurse as a coordinator. Therefore, technological infrastructure is necessary for the seamless implementation of the project.
The Project Team
The collaboration between healthcare professionals involved in patient care will ensure the effectiveness of the project. Rosen et al. (2018) highlighted that safe and effective healthcare necessitates cooperation among multidisciplinary team members. For this reason, the project team will include nurse managers, EMR administrators, IT personnel, laboratory personnel, nurses, physicians, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, and the nurse informaticist.
The nurse informaticist has invaluable knowledge on the integration of clinical expertise with technology. For this reason, the nurse informaticist will guide the team on the use of telemedicine to provide patient care. The IT personnel will assemble the requisite hardware and software that enable telemedicine in patient care. Moreover, the nurse managers will give leadership to the nurses providing care to patients using telemedicine. Therefore, nurse management, nurse informaticist, and IT personnel are fundamental for the project’s success.
The implementation of the project to deliver safe and quality patient care requires the clinical team. The nurse, physiotherapist, occupational therapist, physicians, and laboratory personnel will undergo training on the use of telemedicine facilitated by the nurse informaticist. Consequently, the clinical team will utilize telemedicine to offer quality patient care. Besides, the nurse will also train the patients on operating the telemedicine infrastructure for maximum benefit. Therefore, the clinical team is integral to the implementation of the project.
Conclusion
The evolving world demands that healthcare professionals respond accordingly to technological diversity. Consequently, healthcare practitioners should take advantage of technological advancements to improve patient care. Therefore, nursing informaticists ensure the successful application of technology to provide less-costly yet quality and safe patient care. The integration of a digital system in the care settings promotes quality record keeping and reduces the incidences of medication errors. It enhances efficiency and effectiveness in the nursing units hence improving patient outcomes.
References
Appuswamy, A. V., & Desimone, M. E. (2020). Managing diabetes in hard to reach populations: a review of telehealth interventions. Current Diabetes Reports, 20, 1-10. Web.
Baker, J., & Stanley, A. (2018). Telemedicine technology: a review of services, equipment, and other aspects. Current Allergy and Asthma Reports, 18(11), 1-8. Web.
Honey, M. L., Skiba, D. J., Procter, P., Foster, J., Kouri, P., & Nagle, L. M. (2017). Nursing informatics competencies for entry to practice: The perspective of six countries. Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 232, 51–61.
Rosen, M. A., DiazGranados, D., Dietz, A. S., Benishek, L. E., Thompson, D., Pronovost, P. J., & Weaver, S. J. (2018). Teamwork in healthcare: Key discoveries enabling safer, high-quality care. The American Psychologist, 73(4), 433–450. Web.