Training Session for Policy Implementation (Ass 4) (1*)

Running head: STRATEGY SUMMARY AND TRAINING SESSION 1

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STRATEGY SUMMARY AND TRAINING SESSION

Strategy Summary and Training Session

Student’s Name

Institutional Affiliation

Strategy Summary and Training Session

Policy and practice guidelines play a critical role at St. Elizabeth Community Hospital. As a result of patient safety demand, medication records management is key and requires the implementation of sound policies and practice guidelines on Electronic Medical Records (EMR). For the successful policy implementation, identifying a relevant group and training it to put the policy and practice guidelines into use is crucial since policies strengthen compliance with treatment procedures and processes.

EMR Training Policy for Addressing Poor Management of Patient Data and Information

Strategy for Working with Nurses (Nursing Staff)

Collaboration: Collaboration as an evidence-based strategy can facilitate an effective way of working with nurses to implement the new policy. Research findings by Kueny et al., (2015) showed that the implementation of a policy in a health facility is a form of change, and its success requires a collaboration between policymakers and nurses whereby a nurse manager should undertake the role of ensuring staff burses become active participants in policy implementation. The researchers stated that nurses, as building units, could get involved in policy-making committees and unit decisions (Kueny et al., (2015). Further, the research revealed that collaboration fosters shared governance to engage nurses when implementing new policies and guidelines requiring all employees to undergo fresh training. According to Kroelinger (2019), in 2014, the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) used a cross-state collaboration strategy to implement its policies.

Impact of the Policy and Practice Guidelines

The policy will improve patient safety. Most of the nurses do not have the required skills and abilities to operate the EMR system. As a result of training, there will be a decreased medication errors stemming from wrongly entered and recorded patient data and information. Overall, the training policy will have a revolutionary impact on the management and documentation of medication records. Specifically, it has significant impacts on the daily work routines of the nurses’ role. The first impact is making nurses’ work easier by facilitating health record accessibility for working hours through a computer. Secondly, a nurse will serve many daily visits since the EMR skills will enable them to enter and retrieve data easily. According to Menachemi and Collum (2011), EMR training leads to decreased daily errors and enhanced time management. Nurses will meet daily timelines because they can save time that would be used to direct patients. EMRs improve patient contact, thereby leading to increased care quality.

Regarding the provision of clarity for policy implementation, there is a need to focus on complex considerations. They are the “stuff” around nurses that influence their performance, other hospital stakeholders, and how they impact nurses’ performance and individual nurse (self). Nurses are complex and engage in the decision-making process based on various elements such as paste experience and knowledge (Holroyd-Leduc et al., 2011). As a result, there is a need to evaluate their acceptance of the new policy bringing changes. Also, other stakeholders, such as doctors and physicians, may support or not support the policy. Their support is crucial to new policy implementation success.

Justification of The Importance of a New EMR Training Policy

Since 1972, countries across the world have encouraged medical records’ digitalization. However, the main challenge has been adopting the technology due to computer illiteracy, lack of technical and computer-based skills needed (Waithera et al., 2017). Once the policy gets implemented, all nurses will get equipped with the skills to operate the system and the policy will lead to increased collaboration among nurses and enhanced patient safety. Also, training policy ensures all employees gain order entry and prescription skills critical in preventing adverse drug events.

Research conducted by Holroyd-Leduc et al. (2011) revealed that EMR training policy minimizes errors resulting from poor medication records management. For instance, according to Eggerth et al., (2020), the adoption of the well-trained Infection Preventionist (IP) to track and record information as a surveillance competency boosts overall patient safety by helping nurses not to make data entry errors and mistakes, which leads to wrong prescriptions and errors. As a result, the overall significance of this EMR training policy becomes to enhance patient safety.

Nurses and Management of Medication Records

Importance of Nurses in Implementing the Policy

Nursing staff, mainly comprising nurses, will play a critical role in revealing the early indicators of the policy's success because the new changes directly impact them. For instance, nurses will get evaluated to know the functioning and compatibility of structural changes such as an automated system for running medication record management as per the new policy and practice guidelines' recommendation. Also, nurses will facilitate pilot testing of the new policy in the emergence department, where they should show the reduction of wrong prescriptions resulting from the misplaced patient health record (Elden and Ismail, 2016). Overall, nurses' involvement in the policy implementation phase will enable policy-makers to put directions into action to ensure patient safety. Also, nurses will pursue medical events reporting through manual follow-up to review the process of policy implementation. The future vision of hospital nurses is designing a patient experience to assist them in prioritizing patient safety in everything they do, including the management of medication records. As a result, the implementation of the policy will be successful. This success is because the management of medication records aims at combating medication errors that threaten patient safety. The safety is an integral part of nurses’ vision.

Importance of Training Nursing Staff on the Policy

A well-trained nursing staff becomes conversant with the new concepts of technologies integrated into the new policy technologies concerning medication record management. This training ensures that nurses get skills and knowledge on working as per new policy requirements such as the regular update of patient information on records. Also, nurses will get to know how to avoid medication errors and mistakes by practicing real-time recording of patient information and data at all medical events immediately (Matloob et al., 2020). In general, the training will ensure that nurses are conversant with the new policy requirements, get new skills on record management using computerized systems, and adopt a culture of real-time patient records updates.

Training Process and Training Materials

A two-hour training session for all nurses to learn how to run and operate an electronic health record system for keeping patient records. The training will be a crucial platform to engage nurses in improving patient safety by using modern technology in managing medication records and abandon the use of a manual system. Before the training, concerned trainees will fill questionnaires to predetermine crucial topics to cover during the training. The training will involve the 90-minutes of theoretical training and 45 minutes for the practical part, which involves presentation. The theoretical-based training influences nurses’ willingness to effectively use EMRs and understand how the system can be leveraged to enhance nursing practice via the use of advanced features. This effective use of the system and understanding enables a nurse to gain competency to enter, store, track, and retrieve patient data and information when needed. According to survey data obtained from clinical EMR users, 94.6% of respondents said their ability to run the electronic medical records (EMR) could be improved through EMR training (Longhurst et al., 2019). In the practical part of the training, nurses will practice the theoretical knowledge of using EMR. Training materials for this practical session are laptops, portable Wi-Fi, and fictional patient files. During the session, nurses will be trained on using an Internet-connected computer to enter patient data and information into the system and how to create data folders for easy storage, tracking, and retrieval. These practical activities will equip nurses with proper data management skills and abilities.

Interpreting the Policy for Nursing Staff

The existing medication errors threatening patient safety call for immediate implementation of the policy and practice guidelines. According to Eggerth et al., (2020), information and communications technology give new tools for enhancing medication record management compliance. The primary goal is to improve patient safety and reduce hospitalization. At St. Elizabeth Community Hospital, misplaced patient records have contributed to 75% of medication errors. As a result, patients whose records cannot get traced or tracked end up being prescribed the wrong drugs, and the outcome is 30-day admission. Based on this problem, the new policy will solve the challenge and improve patient safety if effectively implemented.

In conclusion, patient safety is an issue of significant concern. The new EMR training policy on the management of medication records will help St. Elizabeth Community Hospital reduce medication errors resulting from poor patients' medication record keeping. Since the policy comes with adopting new technologies that are electronic health records for patient data and information recording and storage, nurses will have to go through training to acquire the required skills. After the training, the implementation of the policy will automatically be effective.

References

Eggerth, A., Hayn, D., & Schreier, G. (2020). Medication management needs information and communications technology‐based approaches, including telehealth and artificial intelligence. British journal of clinical pharmacology, 86(10), 2000-2007.

Elden, N. M., & Ismail, A. (2016). The importance of medication errors reporting in improving the quality of clinical care services. Global Journal of Health Science, 243–251.

Holroyd-Leduc JM, Lorenzetti D, Straus SE, Sykes L, Quan H (2011) The impact of the electronic medical record on structure, process, and outcomes within primary care: a systematic review of the evidence. J Am Med Inform Assoc 18: 732-737.

Kroelinger, C. D., Morgan, I. A., DeSisto, C. L., Estrich, C., Waddell, L. F., Mackie, C., ... & Rankin, K. M. (2019). State-identified implementation strategies to increase uptake of immediate postpartum long-acting reversible contraception policies. Journal of Women's Health, 28(3), 346-356.

Kueny, A., Shever, L. L., Mackin, M. L., & Titler, M. G. (2015). Facilitating the implementation of evidence-based practice through contextual support and nursing leadership. Journal of healthcare leadership, 7, 29.

Longhurst, C. A., Davis, T., Maneker, A., Eschenroeder Jr, H. C., Dunscombe, R., Reynolds, G., ... & Adler-Milstein, J. (2019). Local investment in training drives electronic health record user satisfaction. Applied clinical informatics, 10(2), 331.

Matloob, I., Khan, S., & Hussain, F. (2020). Medical Health Benefit Management System for Real-Time Notification of Fraud Using Historical Medical Records. Applied Sciences, 10(15), 5144.

Menachemi, N., & Collum, T. H. (2011). Benefits and drawbacks of electronic health record systems. Risk management and healthcare policy, 4, 47.

Waithera, L., Muhia, J., & Songole, R. (2017). Impact of electronic medical records on healthcare delivery in Kisii Teaching and Referral Hospital. Med Clin Rev, 3(4),