Policy
The COVID-19 crisis’s continuously changing risk impacts hospital environments and people. The modern world’s complicated and interconnected life poses a severe threat due to the rapid spread of the disease. Following the COVID-19 outbreak, policymakers devised various health or nursing informatics policies to prevent further infection. The electronic health record (EHR) is a critical tool for a healthcare system dealing with the COVID-19 epidemic (Reeves et al., 2020). Generally, the EHR is a valuable tool for deploying standardized processes quickly.
Impacts on System Implementation
EHR can positively impact quality and safety implementation in the healthcare setting. EHRs have a wealth of information that can aid in pandemic response (Madhavan et al., 2020). Addressing a public health crisis, such as the present COVID-19 epidemic, necessitates access to and assessment of massive volumes of data to provide policymakers with accurate and appropriate evidence. EHR is a crucial tool that improves aspects such as patient diagnostics, tracking and ultimately better outcomes due to its efficiency.
Impact on Clinical Care, Patient/Provider Interactions, and Workflow
EHR has also positively impacted clinical care, provider and patient interactions, and workflow. Having access to the client’s record minimized the close connection and thus ensured social distancing, which was one of the policy requirements for managing COVID-19. Telehealth is one method of delivering healthcare services across a long-distance using information technologies to share accurate and authentic data (Monaghesh & Hajizadeh, 2020). In essence, to decrease the risk of transmission to employees and other people in the hospital setting, teleconferencing is used to offer interventions for persons who are ill or in isolation. Quarantined doctors can use these services to care for their patients from a distance as long as they have their information in EHR. Additionally, the physicians can minimize redundant diagnostics or unnecessary interventions through effective synchronization, which alleviates strain on the staff and improves workflow.
Organizational Policies and Procedures
One of the measures is security guidelines that describe users’ authentification and access. In essence, the personal information of COVID-19 patients must not be shared with unauthorized personnel as it may lead to data breaches. Additionally, since COVID-19 is new, there are regulations to guide the use of their record for research purposes. Overall, a special committee is instituted to detect any violation of these standards.
References
Madhavan, S., Bastarache, L., Brown, J. S., Butte, A. J., Dorr, D. A., Embi, P. J., Friedman, C. P., Johnson, K. B., Moore, J. H., Kohane, I. S., Payne, P. R., Tenenbaum, J. D., Weiner, M. G., Wilcox, A. B., & Ohno-Machado, L. (2020). Use of electronic health records to support a public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States: A perspective from 15 academic medical centers.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 28(2), 393-401. Web.
Monaghesh, E., & Hajizadeh, A. (2020). The role of Telehealth during COVID-19 outbreak: A systematic review based on current evidence. BMC Public Health, 20. Web.
Reeves, J. J., Hollandsworth, H. M., Torriani, F. J., Taplitz, R., Abeles, S., Tai-Seale, M., Millen, M., Clay, B. J., & Longhurst, C. A. (2020). Rapid response to COVID-19: Health informatics support for outbreak management in an academic health system.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 27(6), 853-859. Web.