Information Systems : Patient Care Technologies Essay

378). Hospitals have an array of medical devices at the bedside that have alarms, which have grown significantly within recent years. Nurses may be exposed to over 350 physiologic alarm monitors per day, resulting in sensory overload thus leading to desensitization. When the alarm sounds it should be corrected immediately, even though it may be a false alarm or no issues with the patient. The Joint Commission has identified alarm fatigue as a 2014 National Patient Safety Goal, requiring hospitals “to establish improvement of alarm system safety as an organization priority” (as cited in Horkan, 2014, p. 83). Alarms are deliberately designed for high sensitivity so that nurses do not miss a true event. Firing alarms are usually muted, disabled or ignored by nurses altogether because alarms are viewed as a nuisance. Alarm hazards have generated national attention, in one highly publicized case an alarm sounded for 75 minutes before a nurse responded to a patient’s heart monitor that needed a battery replaced. When the nurse finally went to change the battery the patient was found unresponsive and could not be resuscitated because he had gone into cardiac arrest (Sendelbach & Funk, 2013). The patient’s heart monitor battery eventually died and did not issue the critical alarm alert. In another event, a patient fell getting out of bed and bleed to death because the nurse

Over the past decade, virtually every major industry invested heavily in computerization. The heath care industry was no exception to the rise in the use of technology. These technologies are starting to allow health care practitioners to offer faster, and more efficient patient care than ever before. No doubt this is the right direction we expect health care to follow.

In Cvach’s (2012) article, an integrated review synthesized research and non-research findings of seventy-two articles, published between 1/1/2000 and 10/1/2011. The author used the John Hopkins Nursing Evidence Based-Practice model to measure and evaluate the articles for this review. The data collected were categorized into 5 main themes: excessive alarms and the effects on nurses, nurse's response to alarms, alarm sounds and audibility, technology to reduce false alarms, and alarm notification system (Cvach, 2012). The purpose of this integrated review was to find out if the volume of noise (false alarms vs true alarms) disrupts the nurse’s response and perception to physiologic clinical alarms. The 3 main recommendations provided by the researcher were to implement the use of smart technology, generate change within the hospital's environment and protocols, and use of precautionary measures by healthcare staff in order to reduce monitor alarm fatigue.

Clinical alarm systems in acute and critical care health care settings are an assistive way to maintain communication between the client and the nurse. Awareness and comprehension of health devices is crucial to provide nurses with appropriate strategies for critical or non critical interventions that can lead to sentinel events. The ECRI, a nonprofit institute, has identified alarm hazards as the “Top Ten Health Technology Hazards” for 2014. (cite) In 2013 The Joint Commission published a Sentinel Event Alert proposing a National Safety Goal to focus on alarm safety (cite). This topic is pertinent information to be recognized and set as an achievable action in improving patient safety.

Within the Electronic Health Record program, the nurse has access to evidence-based practice tools that can assist the nurse in making decisions regarding the patients plan of care (Linder, J., Bates, D., Middleton, B., & Stanfford, R., 2007). The most important feature of the Electronic Health Record is the ability to instantly provide real-time patient-centered data to all authorized providers (HIT, 2013). The Electronic Health Record is real-time, providing nurses with the most up to the moment patient information the significance of this feature can be explained in the following example. For example, if a patient is in surgery, the patient's health record is available to the circulating nurse in the Operating Room, the Post Anesthesia Care Unit nurse and can be shared with the unit staff nurse the patient will be transferred to after recovering in the Post Anesthesia Care Unit. This is of particular importance because having access to the patient's chart, allows the nurses at each phase on the patient's care the ability to prepare supplies, gather necessary equipment and arrange for supplementary staff. Evidence-based practice suggests appropriate planning is a key factor in promoting positive, cost efficient patient outcomes (Anderson, 2012). In the profession of nursing when time is of the essence, and time loss can mean loss of a life, this is a feature that is very

Article was written by people with extensive experience in health care, pediatrics, and public health. Jessica Anker, Lisa Kern, Erica Abramson, and Rainu Kaushal, all of them are members of Weil corner Medical College and Health Information Technology Evaluation Collaborative. The intended audience is members of health care system, health care providers, and professionals that are involved in patient care. This article discusses how health information technology (HIT) together with organizational structure and clinician involvement can improve care and safety of our patients. I think that this article is important for nursing practice, because it shows that HIT alone cannot improve quality care, but together with work of clinicians and communication

In today’s hospital environment, our main focus is placed on technology, medications and treating a diagnosis. Often patients are wheeled from one examination to another with little personal interaction received from their healthcare provider. Patients are hooked up to monitors alarming endlessly due to staff being either unavailable to silence them or not having the compassion to comfort. Technology has become so dominant in hospital settings that we have lost sight of providing the

Health information technology (HIT) involves trading of health information in an electronic format to advance health care, reduce health expenditures, improve work efficiency, decrease medication errors, and make health care more accessible. Maintaining privacy and security of health information is crucial when technology is involved. Health information exchange plays an important role in improving the quality and delivery of health care and cost-effectiveness. “There is very little electronic information sharing among clinicians, hospitals, and other providers, despite considerable investments in health information technology (IT) over the past five years” (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2014, p. 1).

Let me expand on your response to Debra’s post. Are we so busy running around taking care of numerous patients that we get caught up in desensitization of alarms? I have to concur with you that ignoring alarms is not an option, those nurses who jeopardize the safety of patients are only making a fool of themselves. We all know what the end result might be. It is in our jurisdiction to protect our patients by making sure that they are free from harm; therefore, regardless of how many times an alarm is sounding, we should make sure to check the patient. One of the disadvantages is that there are times when we are busy with another patient and cannot respond to an alarm. This is why it is important that nurses collaborate so that we do not

Multiple sources cite false alarms in anywhere from 72-99% of all alarms (Ensslin, 2014; Meeks, 2014; Sendelbach & Funk, 2013). Clinical alarms are in place to enhance patient safety by alerting health care workers to deviations in predetermined normal status (Sendelbach and Funk, 2013), but with up to 1000 electronic alerts and alarms each shift, it is difficult to know which alarms to respond to (Duggan, 2016). In labor and delivery, two lives are depending on the nurse to know which alarms are important to respond to. In addition to the safety of the patient, persistent alarms affect the labor experience of the patient and family, contributing to increased stress and anxiety and decreasing the holistic experience (Meeks, 2014). Many times

The goal of this literature review is to increase our knowledge about technology use in practice and to identify where there is need for improvement. Information technology seems to be a widely discussed topic these days and most nurses have no clear idea how it can transform the way we do things on an every day basis. We will also look at the impact technology has on nursing, patients, and colleagues. We will then focus on a specific nursing setting, in this case the emergency room. This literature review is organized to grow on each independent section so that you, the reader, can form your own opinion, but take with you the universal understanding of how information technology will lead us down a new and exciting career path.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and describe two health information and communication technologies (HICTs) and how they aid nurses in supporting safe, quality care, facilitating continuity of care and care coordination, and partnering with patients and families to increase participation in health care. HICT involves electronic creation, storage, exchange, and analysis of health information to advance delivery of health care. Widespread use of HICT within the healthcare industry can achieve the following goals: improve healthcare quality and safety, reduce costs and health disparities, enhance clinical research, and ensure security of patient health information (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2015). Several examples of HICTs include: electronic medical record systems, electronic prescribing, consumer health applications, and telehealth (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality [AHRQ], 2015). Integration of HICTs in healthcare settings is valuable for all clinicians, but most importantly nurses as they are primary caregivers.

Many people are not aware of what professionals are responsible for in the fields of Management Information Systems and Health Care Information Systems or what well-paying jobs are available in those fields. Some people know a small of information about them but do nor do they understand why someone would want to major in these fields. This information obtained research of these fields will help the reader become more familiar help you become more familiar with what they are, what they do, the career choices they can provide, and how these fields is very dominate in today’s job market.

Health Informatics created two main categories such as clinical and administrative information systems to meet the needs of one or more department within the health care organization. For the clinical information system, it is set to meet the needs in improving patient care. Therefore, the clinical information system (CIS) categories provide nurses information systems (NIS) that support the way nurses documents the care that given to the patients. However, to improve the delivery of nursing care, the healthcare organization must adopt a computer system that can successfully incorporate tools that will benefit nursing. There is two vendors’ software that implies these characteristics for the

In today’s health care system, “quality” and “safety” are one in the same when it comes to patient care. As Florence Nightingale described our profession long ago, it takes work and vigilance to ensure we are doing the best we can to care for our patients. (Mitchell, 2008)