Question

I think that most healthcare professionals are acutely aware of patient safety. I know many medical professionals and they go to lengths to ensure that the patient is properly cared for and their recommendations for treatment are safe.

During the later decades, Information Technology as has been increasingly used to aid healthcare professionals with documenting, tracking and in some cases, diagnosing. To error is human however Healthcare systems are programmed by humans as well.

For this week’s discussion, find an article related patient safety involving Healthcare IT. In your response, describe the situation and action in addition to your comments how the issue could have been minimized or avoided.

Answer 1

Patient Safety and Health Information Technology:- The advantages of health information technology (IT) include facilitating communication between health care providers; improving medication safety, tracking, and reporting; and promoting quality of care through optimized access to and adherence to guidelines. Health IT systems permit the collection of data for use for quality management, outcome reporting, and public health disease surveillance and reporting. However, improvement is needed with all health IT, especially regarding design, implementation, and integration between platforms within the work environment. Robust interoperability is critical for safe care, it is important to keep patient safety and quality as the primary focus.

Benefits of Health Information Technology :-

Continuous technological developments in healthcare have saved countless lives and improved the quality of life for even more. Not only has technology changed experiences for patients and their families, but it’s also had a huge impact on medical processes and the practices of healthcare professionals.

The Digitalization of Health Records:-

The introduction of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) in replacing paper records has been a game changer for many allied healthcare professionals. Medical assistants, medical records and health information technicians (MRHITs), medical billing and coding professionals, and registered nurses are just some of the allied healthcare roles impacted by this implementation.

Nurses and technicians are now responsible for inputting patient data such as vital signs, weight, test results, etc. into a central, digitized system. On the administration side of things, medical billers and coders use EHRs for scheduling appointments, updating patient records with diagnostic codes, and submitting medical claims.

Among the many benefits EHR technology has brought to healthcare include:

(a.)Enhanced Patient Care :- EHR can automatically alert the treating physician to potential issues, such as allergies or intolerances to certain medicines. EHRs can be accessed in any medical facility, which is extremely useful for doctors to access their medical history. This is especially important if the patient is unconscious.

(b.)Improved Public Health:-

EHRs provide invaluable data to clinical researchers, which advances medical knowledge and the development of new treatments for common health problems.Additionally, a central and standardized system throughout the entire healthcare industry can identify a viral or bacterial infection quickly. This can give insights into how widespread an outbreak is, enabling preventative measures to be put in place much more quickly.

(c) Ease of Workflow:-

Medical billers and coders are perhaps most impacted by EHRs, as the number of medical codes recently jumped from 13,600 to 69,000. Despite this huge jump, the introduction of EHRs has made life for medical billers and coders much easier.

Entering data into a computerized system is much less time-consuming than paper-based methods. It also reduces the risk of errors in patient data and financial details. Accessing patient records digitally can be done in an instant and viewed via portable devices, increasing efficiency and productivity.

(d.)Lower Healthcare Costs:-

According to a study from the the University of Michigan, the shift from paper to electronic health records reduces the cost of outpatient care by 3%. These researchers estimated this as $5.14 in savings per patient each month.

(e.)Big Data and The Cloud:-

‘Big Data’ is the buzzword of the digital age The term refers to the enormous amounts of data collected from a variety of sources that are then processed and used for analytics.As an industry dealing with the public, healthcare naturally collects and stores huge amounts of data. When analyzed by data experts, this information has multiple benefits, such as:

*)Reducing healthcare costs

*)Predicting epidemics

*)Avoiding preventable deaths

*)Improving quality of life

*)Reducing healthcare wastage

*)Improving efficiency and quality of care

*)Developing new drugs and treatments.

(f.) Information and Communication Technology:-

Approximately 270 million Americans own a mobile phone, and even more are connected online. As with any industry, healthcare has needed to transform its communication processes to connect with people wherever they are.

Information and communication technology (ICT) link healthcare professionals, as well as professionals with patients. It’s especially useful in rural areas and places with a lack of facilities and/or specialist services.

Email, smartphones, webcam, telemedicine, and telemonitoring systems are all currently being used to share information. They serve many purposes, such as diagnostics, management, counseling, education, and support.

Patient Safety Concerns With Health Information Technology:-

(a.)In the 2013 list of hazards by ECRI Institute, four of the top ten hazards were directly related to health IT. “Technology-related adverse events can be associated with all components of a comprehensive technology system and may involve errors of either commission or omission. These unintended adverse events typically stem from human-machine interfaces or organization/system design” .

(b.) The use of alerts to warn health care providers of potential problems is a powerful tool. However, alerts top the list of 2013 health IT hazards because the sheer volume of them is causing alert fatigue. This issue is complex and requires individualization within each facility. Developing systems to manage alerts, establish levels of importance, and make them unambiguous is a critical patient safety priority.

(c.) Computerized Physician Order Entry has improved legibility and order processing times, and lowered the risk of medical errors; however, safety concerns have been raised. The time needed to place an order has increased, the ordering process may disrupt the work flow of the health care provider, and some formatting can create new opportunities for errors. These errors may be caused by fragmented displays, inflexible ordering formats, incompatible orders, and separations in functions that prevent full comprehension of a patient’s health care needs .

(d.)Patient engagement tools, while improving patient involvement, also introduce reliability concerns regarding data. Use of portable devices that are not password protected makes the patient record vulnerable to invasion of privacy .

(e.)Patient data mismatch or inserting data into the wrong patient’s chart or documenting patient information under the wrong visit may be increased with electronic charting. Mismatches can also occur with paper charting. However, as the amount of data being transferred between different systems increases, the potential for mass mismatch exists and must be evaluated.

(f.)Although robust interoperability would allow the exchange of patient information and availability of a complete picture of the patient’s care, achieving such a goal has remained elusive. The exchange of data across all health care settings and health care providers would reduce errors and improve patient safety. However, the marketplace continues to sell products that use proprietary code and, thus, are not easily integrated with other systems for the exchange of data.

(g.) Automated and self-populating templates designed to save time can inadvertently cause inaccuracy in the medical record. Health care providers must review and edit these templates to ensure that they accurately reflect the encounter. Copying and pasting patient notes from prior visits also can compromise a patient’s record if not appropriately reviewed and edited.

(h.) There are many barriers to addressing patient safety concerns within health IT systems. There is an absence of mandatory reporting for medical errors related to health IT systems. The nature of competing health IT vendors is such that health care providers may fear sharing errors directly related to the IT system because of concern of violating nondisclosure clauses and vendors’ intellectual property rights signed by users (1).

Summary:-

Health IT has be come an integral part of the practice of medicine. As with any new technology, health IT brings many potential benefits and as well as potential concerns. . As the implementation and use of health IT systems increase, it is important to keep patient safety and quality as a major focus .