To enhance patient care in America, the United States of America (USA) federal and state governments encourage healthcare workers such as nurse to ensure that they use data management technologies. The innovation of Health information exchange (HIE) technology to supplement the existing electronic patient health records was a remarkable invention. McCarthy, et al. (2014) suggest that HIE improves interoperability in healthcare. Interoperability is the capability of healthcare professionals to access, exchange, and cooperatively apply information in a planned way to provide data promptly and effectively to other concerned users. According to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (2017), 12 American countries in the USA were awarded a total of $29.6 million in July 2015, to test the productivity of HIE. Also, four countries out of the 12 states were each awarded with an extra $2.5 million to enhance the use of inter-region and state admission, discharge, and transfer (ADT) notifications to increase patient care and coordination. According to the report, the results were that healthcare facilities that participated in the study reported an increase in patient care, and that the HIE technology has since been incorporated in a considerable number of hospitals in the USA. The current paper seeks to propose the incorporation of the HIE-ADT software in rural hospitals in America to enhance patient care in rural settings. Therefore, it is evident that there is a need to lay out a framework for the incorporation of the HIE-ADT data exchange system to increase patient care in rural America.
Description of Project
This project includes all essential aspects and frameworks on how to fully implement the HIE-ADT software in American rural healthcare facilities. First, the project’s clinical goals and objectives are listed which will give the sense of direction to the paper. Second, the researcher will analyze the project’s market and financial aspects. Third, the researcher will outline the evaluation plan for the effectiveness of the program, and give any alternative assumptions and strategies of project evaluation. Fourth, the paper will identify how the project is applicable to rural healthcare facilities especially in addressing the issues faces by nurses and patients concerning healthcare access, quality and cost. The last aspect discussed will be an estimated budget for the whole project to ensure its success.
Project Relevance
All nurses must engage in effective data management to ensure the safety of patients. Poor data management can lead to misreporting a patient’s condition that can have serious consequences such as death (Ward et al., 2015). Nurses have a task to deliver top most care to patients no matter the situation. Hence, it is vital for the government to incorporate data management software such as HIE-ADT to improve how nurses in rural hospitals attend to patients. Notably, it is not enough to incorporate such technologies in urban hospitals since a considerable number of taxpaying American citizens seek medical help from rural hospitals. Therefore, to ensure that there is equality in the management of both urban and rural hospitals, governments must support the implementation of the HIE-ADT software in rural American companies today.
Literature Review
Healthcare is a multi-dimensional aspect that aims to diagnose, treat and prevent health-related problems in people. Some of the main healthcare sectors include nursing, psychology, and dentistry, among others. In such sectors, health practitioners require to note down various information about the patient, such as their medical history, various diagnoses, prescriptions, imaging and laboratory experiments, among others. According to Dash, et al. (2019), in the past, the medical records of patients were kept in files which were either handwritten, or typed and stored in a typical computer file. However, the authors note that in recent years, the American federal government has developed ways through which it can electronically collect the medical records of patients. Notably, there are a few advantages that are evident with the introduction of electronic health records (EHR) using the HIE-ADT software. First, the use of EHR helps to monitor any infectious diseases in a country or region (Kruse et al., 2018). In support of the sentiments of these authors, Dash, et al. (2019) add EHR play a crucial role in helping researchers to identify ways to contain a pandemic to mitigate the spread of the disease.
For example, currently, the world is battling the global outbreak of Covid-19. Reeves et al. (2020) note that some of the main benefits of the EHR methods reported by the managers of the incident command center of Covid-19 is that there is fast distribution of information and tracking of information. Besides, the authors note that EHR have made it possible to offer telemedicine visits to patients suffering from Covid-19. Second, EHR has increased the level of communication between healthcare professionals to reduce the level of medical errors. According to Ward et al. (2015) there are several types of errors which can occur in a hospital setting such duplication and supplication, which can lead to misdiagnosis or incorrect prescription of drugs that can even cause death. Besides, Ward et al. (2015 conducted a research study on 7,348 patients and revealed that errors in health data management also caused poor representation of the health organization’s financial performance.
Additionally, Procop et al. (2015) assert that repeating the medical procedures such as laboratory tests that have already been done is a considerable issue that costs healthcare facilities in the USA billions of money per year. Moreover, exposing patients to repeated X-ray tests is unnecessary and dangerous as it exposes patients to harmful and excessive exposure to radiation, which is against the targets of the Patient Protection Act. Besides, Procop et al. (2015) and Ward et al. (2015) agree that poor communication strategies among different medical workers within a hospital facility is the most common cause of service duplication in America. Communication is a very crucial tool that medical practitioners should use to reduce the chances of engaging in service duplication in hospitals today. Besides, Reeves et al. (2020) note that one of the main challenges that affects the effectiveness of practitioners in response centers is communication because of poor coordination of practitioners. Procop et al. (2015) created the Hard Stop alert, which is an effective tactic designed to block laboratory tests that seem to be unnecessary. According to research studies by the authors on 5,858 duplicate laboratory tests, the Hard Stop Alert tool reduced duplicated tests by 92.3%, and the overall cost saved after the survey using this technique was $94,225.
Besides Campanella et al. (2015) add that managers of medical centers and healthcare professionals such as nurses should join efforts to reduce the scale of economies which increase with the increase of preventable errors such as service duplication. Third, the mortality rate of patients who get treated in hospitals where there is full EHR about them is less that of patients treated with partial of no EHR about them. Yanamadala et al. (2016) note that the mortality rate of patients with full EHR records was 3.7%, while that of patients with partial EHR about them was 4.0% and that of those with not EHR documentation was at 4.4%. Campanella et al. (2015) resonate with the thoughts of Yanamadala et al. (2016) by noting that since it is easier to access the medical data records of patients with full EHR, it is easier to commence treatment on them more promptly, compared to patients with partial or no EHR records.
However, most Americans do not understand the gross effects of such findings. According to All of Us (2019), there are many benefits to enrolling for full EHR; the researchers have only collected data from 175,000 Americans since 2015. Hence, it necessary for stakeholders in the healthcare sector to encourage more citizens to enroll in the program for their benefit. Finally, successful implementation of EHR software such as HIE-ADT would increase the patient data safety as noted under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Notably, among one of 11 benefits of EHR noted by the Healthit.gov (2019) is that it enhances the privacy of patient data from unauthorized users. However, empirical research continues to provide contrasting evidence about this fact. For example, Jamshed et al. (2015) note that sharing of a patient’s information from one healthcare facility to another or from one medical practitioner to another reduces the trustworthiness of EHR to patients, and they may end up giving half-baked information about their medical conditions.
Additionally, Abouelmehdi et al. (2018) also offer contrasting evidence that negates the recommendation of the Healthit.gov (2019) by noting that unscrupulous people such as hackers have managed to access anonymous and encrypted patient EHRs and managed to manipulate them which calls for more technological research into the privacy and protection of patient information. Therefore, it is evident that both ethical and legal issues arise based on the safety of patient information in EHR. Hence, as discussed it is apparent that there are notable benefits that will be evident if the government incorporates EHR software such as HIE-ADT software in rural healthcare facilities. Some of these benefits include the effective monitoring of Covid-19 in rural areas, reduction of medical errors, and the mitigation of the mortality rates of patients in rural areas.
Project Clinical Goals and Objectives
- To equip healthcare workers working in hospitals in rural America about EHR and how to use the HIE-ADT software, which will increase their productivity
- To enhance patient management and monitoring in rural America
- To inform patients in rural America about the need to enroll in the All of us program to have their medical records fully recorded