Understanding Workflow Design,Wk 7 Response #1 Nursing Technology help

Please create a response to my classmates posting that I will list below.

APA format*** 2 paragraphs for the response below***at least 4-5 sentences each paragraph***2 References**

My Classmates posting was:

Understanding Workflow Design

Overtime healthcare has grown to be more complex and continually evolving. Health information technology (HIT) was created to aid in easing the stress of healthcare professionals. However, sometimes HIT systems can create more stress due to healthcare professionals constantly having to learn new technology skills. Workflows are defined as a series of steps or tasks that must be done in sequence (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2015). Workflows are able to help healthcare professionals use HITs in any hospital organization.

Concepts

Checklists are defined as a form that is easy to use for recording data or requirements (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), n.d.). Checklists can be useful in my hospital organization when rounding on patients. The tool should be easy to use and require little to no training (HHS, n.d.). The current rounding sheet is very hard to use, as it asks for a lot of information of the patient. For example, it uses the time, where the patient is located, what the patient is doing and the mood of the patient. An easier checklist would have the time, location and what the patient is doing. Flowcharts are a visual concept of a process in steps (HHS, n.d.). The admission process at the current hospital I am at is very confusing. There are specific papers that need to go to the physicians, social workers, and the secretary. A flowsheet would be helpful in making sure specific papers are given to certain people and then where those sheets go from there. It’s visual picture for the interdisciplinary team that will help in making sure vital papers aren’t lost. Lastly, an interview is used to get information from individuals regarding specific topics (HHS, n.d.). At this hospital, a nurse may be the intake coordinator and help in the admitting process of a patient. The hospital doesn’t have a specific paper that states what to ask the patient when in the position of the intake coordinator. Having the interview questions that must be asked on admission will be helpful. This will make sure that all the sensitive questions that need to be known at admission are inputted into the computer for the interdisciplinary team to see.

Summarization of Article

In a study by Rollman et. al. (2001), it looked at how the electronic medical record (EMR) can give alerts to physicians based on if the patient had major depression. The alerts were to remind physicians of the diagnosis and if they would like to ignore the diagnosis, get reminders and try to treat the diagnosis, or get reminders and patient-specific messages (Rollman et. al., 2001). The purpose is to remind physicians to treat mental health disorders as well as medical issues. “Primary care physicians who agreed with the depression diagnosis by day 3 after notification more quickly initiated antidepressant pharmacotherapy than [providers] who agreed with the diagnosis only at a later time” (Rollman et. al., 2001). A workflow like this should be used in all primary care sites. The current hospital organization I’m at has a lot of primary care physician’s (PCP) in the outpatient setting. The PCPs can use this workflow to evaluate patients with major depression and if a crisis arises when interviewing the patient, they can send the patient to the hospital.

Evaluating the Effect of Technology on Workflows

Technology is vital in making sure workflows are efficient and increase quality of care. The informatics nurse (IN) will play a vital role in making sure the technology and workflows work well together. The IN will need to be prepared to improve workflows as technology continually changes (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2015). Workflows will need to be redesigned and maintained to keep up with the future of technology.

References

McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. G. (2015). Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge (3rd ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones and Bartlett Learning.

Rollman, B. L., Hanusa, B. H., Gilbert, T., Lowe, H. J., Kapoor, W. N., & Schulberg, H. C. (2001). The Electronic Medical Record: A randomized trial of its impact on primary care physicians’ initial management of major depression. Archives of Internal Medicine, 161(2), 189. doi:10.1001/archinte.161.2.189

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. (n.d.). Workflow assessment for health IT toolkit. Retrieved from https://healthit.ahrq.gov/health-it-tools-and-reso…