Interaction Between Nurse Informaticists and Other Specialists

Running Head: VIRTUAL HEALTHCARE 1

VIRTUAL HEALTHCARE 6

Virtual healthcare

Name

Institution

Date

Virtual healthcare

The health sector has gone through tremendous changes and reforms meant to improve the quality of services, enhance effectiveness, and reduce healthcare costs. This paper proposes the adoption of virtual healthcare to deliver healthcare services to elderly patients with chronic diseases such as stroke, cancer, hypertension, obesity, and diabetes. Virtual healthcare is also known as telemedicine or telehealth (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2017). Virtual medicine allows caregivers to make follow-ups on their patients remotely through the use of technology such as videoconferencing or mobile apps. After treating these patients, they can be discharged from the hospital for home care to reduce the congestion of patients in the healthcare facility and reduce the risk of infection.

Currently, there are fifty nurses in my health organization handling approximately three hundred patients per day. Out of this number, sixty percent of the patients are adults with chronic infections. The organization is having a capacity of two hundred beds, and it is currently full. The shortage of nurses in my healthcare organization is a significant concern going forward (Juraschek et al., 2019). Therefore, instead of continuing with traditional care services such as face-to-face visits, the management can consider adopting virtual healthcare. Virtual healthcare is a form of nursing informatics that is broadly used in the United States (Balenton & Chiappelli, 2017). Researchers have revealed that the full adoption of this healthcare technology will save the country health system seven billion annually. At the same time, time saving would free up the equivalent of thirty-five thousand doctors (Wang, Kung & Byrd, 2018). Many benefits are associated with the use of this technology. The use of telemedicine ensures that high-quality healthcare services are available to traditionally underprivileged populations. Telemedicine also saves time wasted by patients and cares-givers in traveling from one place to another to avail healthcare services on-time and also reduces healthcare costs (Balenton & Chiappelli, 2017).

Telemedicine technology is mainly preferred in areas where physical distance between caregivers and patients is an issue, thus hindering the delivery of healthcare services because patients can not avail themselves to the medical facility when they are needed to do so by healthcare providers (Balenton & Chiappelli, 2017). Nurse informaticists will involve helping a caregiver analyze, design, implement, and evaluate information and communication systems that ensure improved patient care outcomes, improved care, and a robust nurse-patient relationship (Wang, Kung & Byrd, 2018). Nurse informaticists will also ensure that they identify nursing informatics tools that enhance patient care that is equitable, timely, efficient, safe, effective, and patient-centered.

The stakeholders impacted by this project include nurses, physicians, pharmacists, patients, and nurse informaticists. Virtual healthcare involves special arrangements to continue with follow-ups on patients after they have been discharged. The most significant form of virtual healthcare is telenursing (Balenton & Chiappelli, 2017). Telenursing involves nursing activities that are offered to patients in remote areas through the use of information and communication technology (Fathi et. Al., 2018). Telenursing can assist elderly patients with chronic diseases; this can be done by providing services such as telediagnosis, telemonitoring, and teleconsultant (Fathi et. Al., 2018). Telenursing is used primarily due to the increasing number of chronically ill and aging populations.

Patients with chronic sicknesses such as diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart failure, can be discharged home to benefit from virtual healthcare. Virtual healthcare can also be applicable for patients in immediate post-surgical situations, ostomies, disabled individuals, or care of wounds (Balenton & Chiappelli, 2017).

The organization can also adopt call centers to provide counseling and information for home-based or telephone triage patients. Through telephone triage, nurses will be able to perform symptoms assessment by asking detailed questions concerning the patient's illness. Telephone triage will also enable nurses to determine if the symptoms are life-threatening, urgent, emergency, or acute. Telephone triage can be adopted while advising and educating patients and making useful and safe dispositions (Fathi et. Al., 2018). The use of telenursing approaches will enhance patient care outcomes and reduce space in emergency rooms and minimize congestion in healthcare organizations (Fathi et. Al., 2018). According to research conducted by American Nursing Association in 2015, telenursing can be used to attend to approximately 12-16 patients in a day as opposed to routine visits where less than ten patients can be attended to within the same time.

Caution must be practiced while executing this healthcare technology because it requires a high level of integrity and discipline (Fathi et. Al., 2018). Patients must follow all the guidelines as outlined by the nurse, and they must give accurate information regarding their sicknesses to enable nurses to provide correct prescriptions. Wrong information regarding patient sickness can lead to inaccurate symptom assessment and, in return, can lead to the wrong diagnosis. An incorrect diagnosis can be highly dangerous to patients because it can lead to further damages to the health of the patient or death to the patient.

There is an excellent opportunity to implement telenursing intervention approaches in transitional nursing due to the increasing number of smartphones in the country. Today, one out of five people in the United States has a smartphone, and one out of ten people know how to operate a computer and use it (Wang, Kung & Byrd, 2018). There is an excellent opportunity to enhance the adoption of technology in healthcare delivery for home care patients. Technologies that will be required for this project include a satellite, computers, routers, and smartphones or tablets. These technologies are readily available, and their installations are not expensive. Nurse informaticists will be used to provide labor during the installation process.

The project team will consist of a group selected from all the departments. Interprofessional collaboration is one aspect that will be considered during the selection of the project team. The team will consist of physicians, physical therapists, social workers, dieticians, nurses, pharmacists, nurse informaticists, and team leaders. Besides, there will be interprofessional education to improve quality care as a way to improve the quality of care for individual patients and the global health population. The role of improving communication and ensuring job satisfaction requires all team members' efforts. The team leader will take the leading role in ensuring that the organization has an active communication network. Nurse informaticists will take the leading role in training and educating other disciplines on the importance of this project to the organization and ensuring high-quality care outcomes (Wang, Kung & Byrd, 2018). Social workers and physical therapists will carry out the study of the feasibility of this project by involving the community and also identifying barriers that might be encountered with the use of telemedicine. Obstacles that may be encountered could be the lack of skills to operate digital devices by both nurses and patients. Inaequate commitments by patients to adhere to the services provided by the care providers when they are far apart, lack of self-discipline, and inadequate response to the medical services provided, as well as poor network in remote areas are barriers to be considered too.

The information collected from the feasibility study will be used to determine the appropriate telehealth methods to be adopted for making follow-ups on older people with chronic diseases. Clinicians will be required to provide contacts of all patients from the patients' medical records. Clinicians will also assign patients suitable for this approach to respective nurses. Nurses will be expected to update the health records of the patients regularly to help monitor the impacts of this approach. Dieticians will provide information on nutritional guidelines by advising the patients on how they can adhere to dietary advice (Wang, Kung & Byrd, 2018). Adherence to nutritional guidelines is one of the interventions for treating people with diseases such as diabetes, stroke, and obesity. The team of nurse informaticists will do maintenance and management of this project.

Conclusion

The fact that the current world is full of internet-enabled electronic devices such as mobile phones, laptops, and computers that are the primary tools for ensuring this program is successful should consider exploiting this opportunity for the good of the patients and the organization. The goal to improve the patient outcome through affordable healthcare is valid through the adoption of telenursing intervention strategies in healthcare due to the number of benefits that have been identified in this proposal. The proposed plan is also suitable for long-term care patients, which has been reported to be at a steady increase due to the current healthcare insurance programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.

References

Balenton, N., & Chiappelli, F. (2017). Telenursing: Bioinformation Cornerstone in Healthcare for the 21st Century. Bioinformation, 13(12), 412–414. https://doi-org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.6026/97320630013412

Fathi, J. T., Modin, H. E., & Scott, J. D. (2018). Nurses advancing telehealth services in the era of healthcare reform. Washington Nurse, 48(1), 10–18. https://doi-org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.3912/OJIN.Vol22No02Man02

Juraschek, S. P., Zhang, X., Ranganathan, V., & Lin, V. W. (2019). United States Registered Nurse Workforce Report Card and Shortage Forecast. American Journal of Medical Quality, 34(5), 473–481. https://doi-org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1177/1062860619873217

McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. G. (2017). Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge (4th ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

 Rutherford, M. A. (2008). Standardized nursing language: What does it mean for nursing practice? Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 13(1), 1–12. doi:10.3912/OJIN.Vol13No01PPT05.  

 Wang, Y. Kung, L., & Byrd, T. A. (2018). Big data analytics: Understanding its capabilities and potential benefits for healthcare organizations. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 126(1), 3–13. doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2015.12.019.