Needs Assessment of EHR in Healthcare
QUESTION
The purpose of this assignment is to identify and analyze the needs of an EHR in a clinical setting in order to determine a potential solution to an EHR problem.
Read the “Integrated Case Study”, “Oncology North: Navigator Intake Paper Form” and “Oncology South: Oncology Navigator Intake Form” resources prior to beginning the assignment and use the information in the resource to write a 750-1,000 word paper that provides answers to the following questions:
What are the problems identified in the EHR?
What are the gaps resulting from the identified problems?
What are some opportunities to expand or develop the capabilities of the EHR?
What developments could be made to the clinical workflow setting?
What is a potential solution to the identified EHR problem?
Cite at least two scholarly, peer-reviewed resources in your analysis.
Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.
This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.
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Needs Assessment of EHR in Healthcare
ANSWER
Needs Assessment of EHR in Healthcare
Name
Institution
Needs Assessment of EHR in Healthcare
The Case Study
Electrical Health Records in a clinical setting influence expected patient outcomes by reducing medical errors and accurately diagnosing diseases. The system records patient data and secures it, and makes the information readily available to authorized users. In the case study, two oncology programs (Oncology north and Oncology south) merge with a national oncology healthcare system to be part of Universal Health. The merging of the two companies causes workflow disruption, which is the main problem in the EHR. The paper seeks to analyze the importance of an EHR and determine solutions to EHR hitches.
Findings
Operational issues pose a big problem in the EHR. Disruption of workflow for medical providers is an example of a functional problem using EHR (Datta, Bernstam, and Roberts 2019). The sizeable academic hospital merger to the two programs, the Oncology North and Oncology South, will result in a temporary loss in production. According to research, an estimated 20% loss is incurred during the first month of applying the new record system. The reason for the loss of productivity occurs when staff members are still learning the new system. Initially, the two programs had different operational techniques. With the merger, they have to develop similar functional methods.
Conversion of EHR to another form of EHR is another problem. Changing conditions of EHR presents a tempting target to hackers (Bajabir 2018). If the conversion is not done correctly, patient information and other important data may be compromised. The merged companies risks facing lawsuits from patients and their families when the patient’s information is leaked. The transition from the old form of EHR to a new system (Chrystal) entails some additional work for Oncology South staff members. The management of cancer patients is difficult, which means extra time needs to be created by the program to retrain staff members from operating the new electrical health record system.
Lack of EHR alignment with the healthcare’s recommendation gap results in operational issues. The system should work according to the hospital guidelines to provide patient care. Financial gap results from the conversion of the current EHR to a new form of structure. In this case, updating the system would prove to be expensive as external IT experts need to be contracted; the latest technological equipment and tools need to be purchased. Prior authorization gap leads to operational and conversion problems. When the relevant stakeholders are not informed of the EHR conversion from the original to the new Chrystal, the system’s resistance is likely to progress.
Discussion
The capability needs to be improved with the current advancement in technology. Human and technical errors present opportunities to expand the capabilities of electrical health records (Bajabir 2018). Wrong data entry can be reduced by reducing the human workload of data entry of a patient’s information. During data entry, the system can be developed to link the diagnosis with dosage, support care procedure, and patient education. Immediately after diagnosis, the system can be updated to connect cancer patients’ therapy choices depending on the type of cancer. The process would reduce errors and provide operational efficiency. The need to obtain financial support from an insurance company presents an opportunity to develop the electrical health system’s capability. Documents need to be sent to the prior authorization team for review to ensure the patient’s insurance company authorizes the specific treatment costs.
The oncology department’s overall clinical workflow includes disease diagnosis, authorization of patient’s insurance company, patient counseling, treatment, symptom management, and working for survivorship of cancer patients. At the diagnosis level, health care practitioners can reduce patients’ financial and emotional stress and their loved ones by identifying and notifying the situation’s health insurer. The clinicians can also ensure that patients understand their financial responsibility in the course of treatment. Before a patient undergoes treatment, oncologists should ensure the patient is counseled and aware of the type of treatment to be done, side effects of the treatment, and the treatment benefits. The oncology navigator needs to be identified at the treatment level. The oncology is selected based on the type of cancer and the stage. The oncology navigator then contacts the patient to develop a custom navigation plan based on assessed needs. The oncologist could monitor for any fluctuating conditions along with the treatment therapy the patient is undergoing.
Conclusion
Cancer treatment is one of the everyday activities health care workers encounter daily. Oncology data management is complicated and exhausting to clinicians. The electrical health system offers a solution to oncologists by storing and analyzing data. Despite the numerous advantages of the system to the medical field, some problems are associated with the technology. Operational hitches form the central issue of the system. Continually updating the system and educating staff members on the proper use of the updated technology offers solutions to EHR problems.
Recommendation
Constantly upgrading electrical health records will ensure proper cancer patient care. To reduce electrical health record operational problems, IT operators need to create sophisticated tools for recording, analyzing, and storing data. The devices will ensure that proper decisions are made to meet the patient requirement (Datta, Bernstam, and Roberts 2019). The EHR systems should also be designed to support patient interaction with their caregivers. The system should be linked to the patient’s mobile smartphones to enable patients to readily get help from their home’s comfort and consult doctors on any issue of concern. The system should give patients the option of providing the oncologists and other health workers feedback concerning the treatment. Also, the EHR systems should be made more modular and flexible to allow oncologists to focus on specific applications that improve patient care.
Reference
Bajabir-Geddes, S. (2018). Optimization of an EHR and Workflow Redesign at a Small Cancer Center in the Michigan Upper Peninsula.
Datta, S., Bernstam, E. V., & Roberts, K. (2019). A-frame semantic overview of NLP-based information extraction for cancer-related EHR notes. Journal of biomedical informatics, 100, 103301.