Practicum Project Plan: New Information System Based On the Need to Enhance the Speed of Documentation and Patient Charting At the Health Facility
Introduction
The relevance of informatics in seeking to address provider and patient needs while at the same time further enhancing not only the quality, but also the safety of the clinical environment, cannot be overstated in the contemporary information-sensitive healthcare industry. This paper seeks to present a Practicum Project Plan proposal on new information systems utilized in a healthcare organization. In so doing, the need to enhance documentation speed as well as patient charting has been identified.
Goal Statement
With documentation being a critical nursing informatics feature, clinical documentation improvement seeks to enhance the proper and accurate capturing of patient encounters. The overall goal of this project is to suggest and advance the case for the new information system founded on the need to promote the speed of documentation and patient charting at the healthcare facility. More specifically, this undertaking will be focused on increasing the information system’s efficiency, the further enhancement of the security as well as safety of the databases, and ensuring that data sharing within the facility is eased.
Project Objectives
In essence, project objectives ought to be “specific and measurable, and must meet time, budget, and quality constraints” (Shirley, 2016, p. 132). The first objective will be the highlighting of information pertinent to the accomplishment of this project’s goal. The second objective will be the application of the pertinent information in the formulation of the new information system. The third objective with be the assessment as well as evaluation of the effectiveness of the new information system, with the overriding interest being the impact on the speed of documentation and patient charting at the health facility. Continuous assessment of the new information system will be prioritized with an aim of revising the relevant processes so as to attain the desired outcomes.
Evidence-Based Review of the Literature for Project Justification
This is to say that no standard definition of the same exists. However, the more applicable definition of healthcare information systems as per the present Practicum Project Plan will be “the application of information processing involving both computer hardware and software that deals with the storage, retrieval, sharing, and use of health care information, data, and knowledge for communication and decision making” (Jacko, 2007, p. 550). Numerous studies have indicated that the implementation of healthcare information systems comes in handy in not only the enhancement of legibility, but also in the reduction medical errors. In turn, this helps in the reduction of costs and the overall improvement of the equality of healthcare.
In the words of Wager, Lee and Glaser (2013), health information systems could comprise “of a wide range of networking technologies, clinical databases, electronic medical/health records, and other specific biomedical, administrative and financial technologies that generate, transmit and store healthcare information” (84). In basic terms, today’s healthcare industry is regarded more information-sensitive than was the case a few decades ago. Towards this end, informatics have become a critical component of the system in seeking to address patient and provider needs, while at the same time further enhancing the safety as well as quality of the clinical environment. Alotaibi and Federico are in agreement. In reference to clinical decision support, the authors are of the opinion that thanks to informatics, professionals in healthcare settings have better access to patient-specific information (Alotaibi and Federico, 2017). Essentially, better access to such information is of great relevance in the further enhancement of the decision making capabilities of healthcare professionals – specifically with regard to the rational filtering and appropriate presentation of needed information. Clinical decision support, according to the authors, is inclusive of a wide “range of tools to enhance decision-making and the clinical workflow” (Alotaibi…
