The paper explores the role of nurses in the implementation of new Electronic health system. It describes ways in which nurses can persuade others to embrace appropriate methods for handling challenges in the nursing profession. It creates an understanding of the advantages of introducing the electronic health system in hospitals.
¶ … New Electronic Health Records System
Nurse Facilitator preparing a team on implementation of new electronic health records system
Electronic health record systems are a compilation of health information details of the individual patients stored in digital systems (Greenhalgh, 2005). The records are shared across the different health care institutions. The sharing of this information occurs via the network connections, where the internet facilitates this connection.
An electronic health system includes information of patients, such as the identity and contact information of the patient (Greenhalgh, 2005). The system contains details about the patients visiting the healthcare facilities, whether a patient has allergies or any conditions. Information of the insurance of the person and general family health history, the immunization status, a list of medications administered, records of being hospitalized and information of any surgeries performed on the individual.
The health of our population is a very crucial area of success to the economy of our local states, nations and the whole world. It is in this view that many governments have seen the need to incorporate the use of information technology in the facilitation of health to the people. The health act has proposed that hospitals, whether large or small should adopt the use of the electronic health systems. These systems are going to be used by us, the nurses and the other physicians in the hospitals.
It is our prerogative as nurses to oversee the successful implementation of these systems. These systems have many advantages to the successful running of our hospitals in our endeavor to providing better healthcare to our population and loved ones. Some of the benefits of using these systems include the capability to share information, and bring up-to-date information of the patient across the various hospitals. It is obvious that many patients visit more than one hospital in search for healthcare. Thus with this system, we will be able to know any previous attendance to the hospitals and the treatment records of the patient hence being able to make the right diagnosis and medical prescriptions.
As nurses, it is us who keep the manual records and files of the patients. You all bare me witness that it is cumbersome to retrieve such files especially if the patient has not been frequently visiting the hospital. These systems will greatly help in providing more quick and efficient storage and retrieval of such records (Greenhalgh, 2005). The electronic health systems will also help in sharing of multimedia results such as medical imaging results with other hospitals in different locations. The system will also provide the benefit of being able to use hospital records as sources for relevant and current research activities, hence making the right statistical analysis of the information on healthcare.
The electronic health systems will provide easier basis of making a decision for the healthcare professionals (Lehmann, 2006). They will provide the required treatment information, hence the ease to refer to that information in making a decision. They will also reduce redundancy efforts of the nurses in doing the same activity of searching for the file of patient repeatedly. Most important, they will lower the running costs once implemented. The funds for buying the files and building cabinets for keeping the files will e saved. The relative security of the patients' health information will also be increased.
I acknowledge the fact that there are concerns over the success of this new way of running the healthcare facility, considering that we are used to the old way of paper-based record keeping. I would like to dispel that fear by stating that there is going to be thorough training regarding the system functioning and also, ample time for us to get acquainted with the use of the electronic health systems. The change-over will be implemented in parallel to the current system (Rogers, 2003). As I have outlined, the advantages of the electronic system are huge and thus we need to give a chance for us to be able to deliver better healthcare services to our patients. The systems are not as hard to use since most of us have the basic knowhow on the use of computers and most electronic devices such as printers and scanners.
The relative security of the data is also of concern, considering that some patients may give false information at the hospital, hence entry of false data into the system (Lehmann, 2006). The fact that some professionals may not share information on their patients, and their personal diagnosis of patients with others is a major setback. I wish to reassure you that the system is only going to work effectively with the input of our efforts. We will not become less vigilant in monitoring our records just because we have an electronic system.
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