The nurse is preparing a client for surgery. What is the most effective method for obtaining an accurate blood pressure reading from the client?

Use APA

 

"Looking for a Similar Assignment? Get Expert Help at an Amazing Discount!"

Respond to each one 200 words

 

"Looking for a Similar Assignment? Get Expert Help at an Amazing Discount!"

1)

 

Policies are written documents that mirror the administrators of a particular organization. In this case, the organizations are healthcare organizations such as hospitals and clinics. With healthcare informatics becoming such a big part of healthcare organizations, policies are being made to keep patients and staff safe. Healthcare informatics policy is directed at making care more effective, improving public health, and proper collection and analyzation of data to guide evidence-based practice. Since policies are reflections of administrations, they can change based on the direction a healthcare organization is heading or what their focus may be (Hebda, Hunter, Czar, 2019). For example, if a hospital is having an increase in medication administration errors, then their policy may focus on scanning all patients and medications prior to administration.

            One of the biggest concerns of healthcare informatics is the privacy and protection of important patient information and policies on informatics have been aimed at reducing the risk of the security of that information being breached. Hospitals have policies such as not putting patient identifiers in emails, logging out of electronic health records once leaving the patients room, education on phishing emails, creating firewalls, having backup storages for patient information, audit trails for and specialized access for private charts. There are also policies on the recovery and retrieval of healthcare information in case of unplanned disasters. The AMIA identified six key health informatics policies: patient empowerment, HIT safety, workforce education, data sharing, quality measurement, and public health (Simpson, 2012).

            The impact these policies have made on informatics have been steps in the right direction due to the importance and protection they place on informatics. They allow us to safely use informatics for better patient outcomes. Telehealth is also fairly new has new policies arising too. For example, at our hospital we use telephysch medicine for psychiatric patients in the emergency department. One of our policies is that all of our psychiatric patients must be assessed by a telepsychiatrist and their recommendation must be upheld regarding 51/50 holds. Using telemedicine in place in person consultations at hospitals that do not have in house specialties improves patient care because it saves time and money for both the patient and hospital. It is especially effective for time sensitive cases such as patients with stroke like symptoms in deciding whether or not to use TPA because instead of having to wait for a neurologist to arrive, the neurologist is able to instantly assess the patient via computer video chat and receive expert consults.

References

Hebda, T., Hunter, K. M., & Czar, P. (2019). Handbook of informatics for nurses and healthcare professionals. NY, NY: Pearson.

Simpson RL. (2002). Nursing informatics. Issues in telemedicine: why is policy still light-years behind technology? Nursing Administration Quarterly, 26(4), 81–84. Retrieved from https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=c8h&AN=106956521&site=ehost-live

2)

 

With the rise in communicable disease, possible threats of bioterrorism, and other chronic illnesses, informatics and public health policies go hand in hand.  Data collection and analyzation through interoperability systems can provide so much information that can help the entire population nationally.  “Public health informatics (PIH) is considered to be one of the most useful systems in addressing disease surveillance, epidemics, natural disasters, and bioterrorism” (Aziz, 2017, p. 79).  The government is essentially in control of public health decisions and determines which polices and guidelines will be enacted to abide by national standards.  Public health information systems will depend on available resources and budget.

Currently, data collection comes from multiple different sources including, surveys, facilities, surveillance systems, and data collection systems such as health information exchange (HIE) and health information organization (HIO) (Aziz, 2017).  Hospitals and clinics are often mandated to report specific patient information, which can aid in disease prevention and management.  Although all this data collection aids in PHI, “nonclinical data sources can help assist in identifying public health trends as well” (Hebda, Hunter, & Czar, 2019, p. 426). 

Surveillance systems collect patient data, which is then interpreted and analyzed to look for specific patterns and trends in diseases and injuries.  This research can then provide insight on ways to possibly prevent or mitigate damage from the illness.  Syndromic surveillance system is a specific system that “collects symptoms and clinical features of an undiagnosed disease or health event in near real time that might indicate the early stages of an outbreak or bioterrorism attack” (Aziz, 2017, p. 78).  This information could then be conveyed to all national health officials.  HIE and HIO can also provide pertinent information to the appropriate source, in the event of a natural disaster, where paper documents may get destroyed.  This would be beneficial to PHI as well.

 According to Aziz, the newest development in PHI is “geographic information system (GIS), which uses digitized maps from satellites or aerial photography to provide large volumes of data” (p. 78).  This also helps provide nonclinical data such as location and spatial patterns.  Another benefit for PHI and data collection is the advance of telemedicine/telehealth services.  These services will hopefully be able to provide direct patient data, via smart devices.  So many benefits exist with PHI that could provide information pertaining to vaccines, cancer, communicable disease, and the emergence of new diseases.  This data would allow healthcare officials to determine if there is a possible correlation between patient location, diet regimen, or any other possible link between the patient and the illness.

PHI plays a pivotal role in the health and well being of all individuals.  Funding and adequate resources need to be applied to the PHI specialty in order for it to prosper and gain support in the profession.  Data collection, along with education, are imperative to the management and prevention of disease and possible threats. 

References

Aziz, H.A. (2017). A review of the role of public health informatics in healthcare. Journal of Taibah University Medical Sciences, 12(1), 78-81. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com

Hebda, T., Hunter, K., & Czar, P. (2019). Handbook of informatics for nurses and healthcare professionals (6th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson.

 

200 words for each response

 

"Looking for a Similar Assignment? Get Expert Help at an Amazing Discount!"

1)  

We all have experienced a system failure in our nursing careers. I can’t begin to describe the feeling of coming in to work only to be told “systems down”. Every time I heard those sweet words, I wanted to use a personal day. But this also the time that I am reminded that nurses rely on technology about 90% of the work day. I’ve worked at two different hospitals and each of them do things differently prior to the system going down. Both hospitals use downtime slips when the computers are not work. Nurses are still able to request lab work, use of prescription pads, and order, administer medication. I guess paper charting will never be a thing of the past. One of the hospitals did something a little different, it requires that nurses use paper charting daily alongside EMR. I thought this was a great idea, it keeps the nurses familiar with paper charting so when computers are not assessable patients can still be cared for without much delay. Also, those nurses wouldn’t be scrambling to gather information. My current organization uses downtime slips, this can hectic for some new nurses who are not familiar with paper charting. Although the hospital has backup generators, downtime slips are required to continue care until systems are back up operating. Patients can always be taken care of via paper charting. This practice went on for years before computer charting. For some of the older nurses this is a well-known and preferred method. Caring for the patient is still the number one priority, information can still be obtained and updated by the patient daily and each department is responsible for keeping charts on patients with services provided so that quality care is given until computer systems are up and running.  I think the recommendation would be first to Start by creating an outline that delegates workflow in such an event, including selecting an individual whose main job is to inform staff that the system is down and what patients are most affected by it. It’s great if you have a backup plan in place, but it won’t do you any good if the plan itself doesn’t work. Like a fire drill, have trial runs every so often to ensure that your backup plan will, in fact, pull through for you if your EMR happens to fail.

 Suggest staff keep paper charting on most recent task performed regarding patients. Information such as recent vitals and current medications with administration times, and allergies should be readily available. In case of an emergency this type of documentation must be known to avoid further harm. I think in the end working together in this stressful time will be the key in maintaining patient safety.

 2) 

Natural disasters happen all the time across the country of the United States and beyond the borders such as floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, and earthquakes.  Hospital administrators need to have emergency plans in place to help counteract the chaos, and all staff needs training on how to react in such weather conditions. According to Horahan, Morchel, Raheem, and Stevens (2014), the National Planning Framework mentions there are five mission areas of preparedness: prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery.  As indicated by Memorial Hermann Hospital System (2017), several policies and procedures are listed on their website about the action plan of the failure of utility systems, the problem I have found is that many of our medical-surgical units at my campus have never received any training on how to complete the downtime forms and it expected of us.  The access to electronic health records would not be available during such conditions and staff will need to know what steps to take.

 Power outages can cause the staff to have meltdowns if not correctly prepared on what to do in such emergencies without access to computers. Clinicians need to be careful when taking the patient’s medical history, recording allergies, medications, and any recent procedures they may have had that cannot be accessed online.  Pharmacy orders, diagnostic tests, and lab orders will need to be called in, or hand delivered because of no electricity.

The staff needs to have training on what to do in case of such disasters because they too will need to stay calm themselves to keep patients and families calm during an emergency event.  My unit has an emergency kit filled with downtime forms, batteries, and flashlights.  I think adding a two-way radio would be beneficial to keep in touch with the house supervisor for updates and information.  I have requested the need for training to my manager and director, and they both said they would try to incorporate training at our next staff meeting for everyone to understand how to use the downtime forms and what to do in an emergency. My campus has backup generators that will turn on after ten seconds of no power is detected, and according to the maintenance personnel, they are checked every six months.  There are red outlets throughout the patient care areas that critical medical equipment can be plugged into during power outages for continuous patient care. Quarterly emergency or downtime drills should be conducted regularly to keep staff trained on what to do and how to fill out the downtime forms and be aware of what to do for continuous patient care. Improvising with portable trailers or mobile satellite systems in the parking lot of hospital or somewhere safe may be an option.  

Horahan, K., Morchel, H., Raheem, M., & Stevens, L. (2014). Electronic health records access during a disaster. Online Journal of Public Health Informatics, 5(3).  Retrieved from doi:10.5210/ojphi.v5i3.4826

Memorial Hermann. (2017).  Failure of utility systems.  Memorial Hermann Hospital System.  Retrieved from https://policytech.mhhs.org/dotNet/documents/?docid=32268

200 words each

 

 

"Looking for a Similar Assignment? Get Expert Help at an Amazing Discount!"