Electronic Health Records
Worldwide, EHR has taken the center of focus by many hospitals with the aim of enhancing the integration as well as the availability of patient data. This was to be achieved by the system improving efficiency and effectiveness in terms of cost of healthcare, creating a change in the relationship that exists between the patient and the healthcare provider to enable the management involve a team of healthcare professionals as well as enable coping with a relatively more complex and constantly changing environment (Nguyen, Bellucci& Nguyen, 2014).This article dwells on the positive aspects of the implementation of the system as well as the reaction of various people in the use of EHR.
Through the use of EHR, there has been improve capacity in conducting disease surveillance and monitoring to determine and curb the spread of such conditions.There has also been reduction, medication errors since verification of drugs are done prior to administration. Furthermore, increased care based on guidelines and protocols have been embraced (McGonigle&Mastrian, 2015).
In our medical-surgical unit, the implementation took the form of creation of an implementation team that encompassed nurses, physicians, medical assistants as well as the administrative staffs. The clinical members of their team were responsible for the teaching of other members of staff and noting challenges that were also being reported back to this team. At the same time, the software was configured to ensure it is secure and can only be accessed by authorized individuals via username and password. This was significant to overcome the challenges that most systems face in maintaining the privacy of patients information.
Another positive move that was made was the transferring of data from the previous record keeping system. This move allowed backdating of the patient information making it easy to access the record that existed before the online system using the new EHR (Nelson & Staggers, 2016). Beside all these, I would suggest that for all that embrace and wish to implement EHR system, there is need to come up with procedures that can serve in the instances when the system is down. This can be in the events of a power outage or even when the system malfunctions.
In approaching the implementation, the team responsible came up with a teaching plan that was mandatory to be attended by all the staff members. This plan enabled all of us to gain the essential knowledge and skills in using the EHR from the time of initiation onwards. This indeed made the majority of the staff to embrace the idea because, with proper training, easy operation of the system is expected with less resistance.
Since others were not for the idea from the start, they objected the plan and went ahead to water it down. It turned out that these staffs were not well conversant with the use of the computers hence being the basis of the negative reaction (McGonigle&Mastrian, 2015). Their problem was however efficiently handled by allocating them in areas where the records could be entered via codes rather than typing. At the same time, the system has also been on a modification to be able to use other means of data entry such as the use of voice notes which are relatively easier to use while doing data entry (Nguyen, Bellucci, & Nguyen, 2014).
Other members who were also for the entire plan of implementing EHR but found challenges resorted to being taught by colleagues who were able to get the entire approach faster. The super users of the system indeed turned to be resourceful to their colleagues. I have a feeling that the use of EHR ought to be introduced in the curriculum of all the healthcare personnel so that by the time of practice, there is only need for orientation rather than a new training for the team (Nelson & Staggers, 2016).
A small number of the staff member’s considered the introduction of the system as an idea of the administrative staff hence were out to thwart its implementation(McGonigle&Mastrian, 2015). The implementation team handled this by engaging them and involving them in the team which saw their reaction being watered down as they also viewed themselves to be owning the entire system and the process of its implementation. Despite the initiation of the EHR taking off tremendously, the team approached the implementation poorly by not considering a continuous education and training to the staff after the launch (Boonstra, Versluis&Vos, 2014). Also, they never offered room for modification of the system to meet the needs of the staff.
Conclusion.
The implementation of EHR needs a scheduled plan that will see its success. The reaction of the staff need to be taken into account and handled expertly to see the program progressing. At the same time, the plan must display ownership by the staff for them to embrace it. The approach needs to entail, training both at initiation and onwards, creating a backup to support the system, noting and responding to challenges, modifying the software to secure it as well as having a team responsible for the implementation.
References:
Boonstra, A., Versluis, A., &Vos, J. F. (2014). Implementing electronic health records in
hospitals: a systematic literature review. BMC health services research, 14(1), 370.
McGonigle, D., &Mastrian, K. G. (2015). Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge (3rd ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones and Bartlett Learning
Meeks, D. W., Takian, A., Sittig, D. F., Singh, H., & Barber, N. (2013). Exploring the
sociotechnical intersection of patient safety and electronic health record implementation.
Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 21(e1), e28-e34.
Nelson, R., & Staggers, N. (2016). Health Informatics-E-Book: An Interprofessional Approach.
Elsevier Health Sciences.
Nguyen, L., Bellucci, E., & Nguyen, L. T. (2014). Electronic health records implementation: an
evaluation of information system impact and contingency factors. International journal of
medical informatics, 83(11), 779-796.
