P2 and p2a
TaniAlexis
p2a.docx2 hours ago
RE: Discussion - Week 1 Initial Post
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Week 1 Initial Post
Informatics and technology have become a common part of our country’s health care system. In this day and age, I believe many people take this ability for granted. I know I did prior to taking my current position. I currently work as a charge nurse within the Tennessee Department of Corrections. I work at a maximum security prison that houses 2,000+ male inmates and does not utilize much technology or informatics within their current system. One such system that I took for granted and now no longer have access to is electronic health records. Utilization of electronic health records (EHR) has become standard across our health care system (Martelle, Farber, Stazesky, Dickey, Parsons, & Venters, 2015). However, it is certainly not standard within the Tennessee Department of Corrections’ health care system. This particular issue is the gap in my organization that I will explore as I believe our current paper charting system lacks the many benefits that EHR offer. In our current system, these patients’ files are often difficult to locate if they are signed out to another provider. This can mean that the patient must be seen and treated without immediate access to their records, increasing the possibility of adverse outcomes. Many of these patients are very poor historians and are unable to recall details such as current medications they are taking. In addition, many patients within this population have a tendency to utilize medical services with an ulterior motive as the end goal. Providers must also attempt to track down the nurses in order to gain an insight into the patient should the paper chart be inaccessible. Additionally, when patients are transported to community appointments, their charts are not allowed to leave the facility, leaving the community provider with limited information in regards to their patient. This often leads to many phone calls between the community provider and the prison health staff. As you can see, the inability to access their records leads to wasted time and resources, increasing health care costs associated with these particular patients.
Implementing EHR within our organization would allow immediate access to our patients’ records and decrease the possibility of adverse outcomes. An electronic system would also assist in the ability to track health issues and outcomes of our patients. EHR would assist our abilities to deliver coordinated, quality health care to an often difficult-to-treat population within a challenging environment (Martelle et al., 2015). In addition, consistency in care would be more easily achieved when a patient is being treated by both correctional health providers and community health providers. Because EHR store a massive amount of information, quality assurance and performance improvement projects greatly benefit from the use of this type of health records (Hoover, 2017).
As with any system, there are always difficulties faced. Paper charting does offer the ability to access health records in the event of a power outage or computer system malfunction, a benefit that EHR cannot offer. However, in my opinion, this is the only benefit to a paper charting system. I have always worked with EHR up until my current position within the correctional system. While EHR can offer some difficulties in regards to navigating the system, our current paper charting system is very time-consuming. Everything has to be triple charted, at the minimum, and completely handwritten out (there is no checkbox system for charting, etc.). One simple, straight forward sick call requires approximately an hour of paperwork. If the encounter is more in-depth or more complicated, the time is almost doubled to complete all the required charting. The amount of time needed to complete all the charting and to investigate a patient’s medical history, utilizing the current system I must, is mind-blowing to me. I would be grateful to go back to EHR. One study I located assessed nurses’ thoughts on EHR. I found it very interesting that, in this study, many nurses believed that using EHR was time-consuming and took time away from their patients ( Perna, 2014). I would be interested in researching this further and assessing how my fellow classmates feel about this. Do you believe that EHR systems take time away from patient care? More time than a paper charting system would? If so, can you explain how so?
References
Hoover, R. (2017). Benefits of using an electronic health record. Nursing2017CriticalCare, 12(1), 9-10. Retrieved from https://ovidsp-tx-ovid-com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/sp-3.32.2a/ovidweb.cgi?WebLinkFrameset=1&S=GGACFPDLFPDDKIODNCDKNEJCEIENAA00&returnUrl=ovidweb.cgi%3f%26Titles%3dS.sh.22%257c1%257c10%26FORMAT%3dtitle%26FIELDS%3dTITLES%26S%3dGGACFPDLFPDDKIODNCDKNEJCEIENAA00&directlink=https%3a%2f%2fovidsp.tx.ovid.com%2fovftpdfs%2fFPDDNCJCNEODFP00%2ffs046%2fovft%2flive%2fgv023%2f01244666%2f01244666-201701000-00003.pdf&filename=Benefits+of+using+an+electronic+health+record.&navigation_links=NavLinks.S.sh.22.1&PDFIdLinkField=%2ffs046%2fovft%2flive%2fgv023%2f01244666%2f01244666-201701000-00003&link_from=S.sh.22%7c1&pdf_key=B&pdf_index=S.sh.22&D=ovft
Martelle, M., Farber, B., Stazesky, R., Dickey, N., Parsons, A., & Venters, H. (2015). Meaningful use of an electronic health record in the New York city jail system. The American Journal of Public Health, (9), 1752. Retrieved from https://ezp.waldenulibrary.org/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsgea&AN=edsgcl.435430609&site=eds-live&scope=site
Perna, G. (2014). Nurses dissatisfied with EHRs, report finds. Healthcare Informatics. Retrieved from https://www.hcinnovationgroup.com/clinical-it/electronic-health-record-electronic-medical-record-ehr-emr/news/13024111/nurses-dissatisfied-with-ehrs-report-finds
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