The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies-A Comprehensive Essay Example

The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies-A Comprehensive Essay Example

Use of Telehealth Nursing to Improve Patient Outcomes

Telehealth nursing, also known as e-health/m-health, is an umbrella term that describes using telehealth technologies, including audio or video tools, to monitor and interact with patients remotely, allowing for more consistent healthcare services (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2021; Nagel et al., 2012). The World Health Organization has described telehealth as a significant trajectory in healthcare service due to its sustained exchange of medical information through ICT in environments where distance is crucial (Ackerman et al., 2010). With this technology, patients can access health care facilities remotely and monitor their health using digital information and communication resources such as computers and mobile devices.(The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies-A Comprehensive Essay Example)

This project’s primary aim is to integrate telehealth technology to promote the quality of health care.  This project’s rationale is that healthcare is increasingly being driven by information, and most patients own and use technological devices, including mobile phones and computers. Equally, patient care demands effective information management as necessitated by nursing informatics.(The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies-A Comprehensive Essay Example)

Project Stakeholders

Creating, disseminating, adopting, and using telehealth and telecare technologies necessitates cooperation among several individuals and organizations. Each of them must contribute to a personal, technical, or monetary investment in the technologies and the work needed to use them (Lustig, 2012). Implementing the telehealth project would impact several stakeholders within and without a healthcare setting.(The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies-A Comprehensive Essay Example)

Significant stakeholders for this project will include health and human services (HHS) to facilitate and oversee adequate health care provision. Equally affected by the project will be clinicians, patients, and community residents. The projects will impact interaction mechanisms between health care providers and patients as most interaction will be virtual (Lustig, 2012). Moreover, community residents will be significant in facilitating the project’s acceptability and data collection on public health issues. The collaboration with public health and the health care fraternity will be crucial in collating data to strengthen the project and facilitate more straightforward health improvement.(The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies-A Comprehensive Essay Example)

Another category to be impacted by the projects are industrialists such as health insurers, social care professionals, and third-party organizations such as patient support and care groups/charities. These include people who use or choose to use telehealth services. With the project’s adoption, health insurers will be moved to provide medical coverage for their clients’ virtual health services. Furthermore, the project will impact the way hospital departments operate. For instance, most communication will be carried through telephone conversations, emails, text messages, and video communication. (The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies-A Comprehensive Essay Example)

It is critical for healthcare provider organizations to identify and engage critical stakeholders in the telehealth project implementation. These include internal and external stakeholders responsible for running on day-to-day telehealth activities and providing a fundamental solution to implementing telehealth technology, respectively. Internal stakeholders include healthcare settings, nurses, and support personnel, while external stakeholders include patients, patient groups, and partners.(The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies-A Comprehensive Essay Example)

According to Walde et al. (2014), stakeholder’s acceptability of a telehealth project is a critical enabler of its success. The project will need support from providers’ collaboration, a helpful health administration model, existing health policies, and legislation. In contrast, Wade et al. (2014) argue that a telehealth system’s efficiency can be limited by technical problems, inadequate technical support, lack of administration protocols, ethical and legal barriers such as licensing and standards. These limitations can be mitigated by effective stakeholder engagement in the project’s inception and implementation.(The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies-A Comprehensive Essay Example)

Patient Outcomes/Efficiency of Telehealth Project

Implementing a telehealth system will improve and support health care services by facilitating monitoring patient’s health status; identifying and investigating health risks; educating, informing, and encouraging people about their health; forming group collaborations to provide a solution to health problems; linking patients to healthcare provides; developing healthcare policies and plans; enforcing laws and regulations governing healthcare safety, evaluating the effectiveness and quality of healthcare services (Lustig, 2012). (The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies-A Comprehensive Essay Example)

Moreover, telehealth services will be crucial in decreasing disease transmission, ensuring health services’ safety, thereby protecting patients, caregivers, and the community from exposure to infections (Totten et al., 2016). Therefore, telehealth will be critical in mitigating healthcare providers’ burden and the health system in general. The technology will support patient health outcomes through effective patient-nurse communication and remote counseling for several health conditions, including chronic health conditions. Doctors will provide remote information regarding medical prescription and self-management (Totten et al., 2016). Thus, improving quality of life reduces hospital admission, length of hospital stay, and mortality rate.(The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies-A Comprehensive Essay Example)

Furthermore, the telehealth project will also facilitate public healthcare functions such as tracking diseases and theirs trends trend even in communities, including remote areas. Such public health functions include immunization for children, vaccination, and registries for cancer patients and other chronic illnesses. Telehealth services will enable a specific mode of medical service delivery, especially in reducing face-to-face infectious disease management constraints in marginalized and areas with disease outbreaks (Ackerman et al., 2010). For instance, when there is a disease outbreak such as covid-19, telehealth provides an efficient mechanism with which health professionals can carry out surveillance so that the data collated can be used in the healthcare system and relevant factions such as pharmacies and food vending enterprises.(The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies-A Comprehensive Essay Example)

When telehealth data is accumulated and combined with other social data such as increased mortality, it can identify and mitigate common clinical syndromes and trends. Further, telehealth technologies provide several ways to communicate with relevant shareholders, such as mobile phones and social media. Telehealth makes it easy to mobilize community factions to form private and public partnerships, crucial to moving the community towards positive health outcomes.

Telehealth Technologies

An effective telehealth technology requires sufficient ICT infrastructure and a well-established policy. ICT is critical in exchanging valid and correct information in real-time, storage, and forwarding techniques. The components of ICT include portable electronics, particularly mobile phones and webcams. Besides, video conferencing and television systems are also necessary for providing healthcare programs in hospital and community settings (Choi et al., 2018).(The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies-A Comprehensive Essay Example)

Telehealth system requires a basic setup together with other selective needs (Nagel et al., 2012). Required technologies include internet connection, a video platform, and technological support. Internet serves to facilitate remote audio and video connection between users of telehealth service. Equally, the technical support framework includes hardware components, computers, and phones that enable the running of telehealth programs provided by third-party vendors.(The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies-A Comprehensive Essay Example)

Video connection and interface platform are crucial, especially in virtual recognition where a physician would want to diagnose a patient’s skin or wound status. Video systems can be the computer or app-enabled smartphones to allow patients to physicians. The virtual technology will facilitate virtual patient appointments, virtual consultations, sending lab tests and X-rays for specialist reviews. The web-based/mobile-based applications will be crucial in measuring and uploading patient information such as weight, blood glucose levels, vital signs, calculate and track calorie uptake and blood pressure.(The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies-A Comprehensive Essay Example)

Project Team

The project teams will include core, leadership, advisory, and implementation teams. Core teams constitute clinical, administrative, ICT, and departmental representatives, project managers, and contractors. The core team is responsible and accountable for putting together the plan and driving the telehealth program daily. The leadership team constitutes the hospital board, executives, and partners responsible for high-level decision-making and budgeting. The advisory team constitutes the care teams, patients, and sponsors who will provide perspective and guidance to ensure decisions and guidance on proposals are strategically sound. Lastly, the implementation team includes representatives from every other team. The implementation team will be responsible for informing the ground team of the implementation plans and carrying out the day-to-day operations.(The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies-A Comprehensive Essay Example)

The project team’s significant members will be the ICT and programming specialists responsible for installing and maintaining the telehealth system and training other team members on its usage. Nurse practitioners, administrators, or physicians will be involved in day to day operation of the telehealth services, including keeping track of prescription drug use, renewing medications, and referring patients to other physicians or medical care practitioners as required, and addressing patients’ concerns regarding the use of telehealth services. Significantly, nurse informaticists will act as intermediary specialists in designing, implementing, training, and evaluating computer systems that support telehealth nursing practice. (The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies-A Comprehensive Essay Example)

Conclusion

The telehealth project will be significant in facilitating remote care delivery, thus equal access the healthcare services. The project is founded on providing health care services to people and diverse settings through modern technologies, i.e., nursing informatics(The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies-A Comprehensive Essay Example). The telehealth project will facilitate care delivery in remote areas through virtual interactions with health care practitioners. Equally, the project will enable collating health data from diverse backgrounds, which will significantly monitor diseases trend and deliver holistic treatment in a virtual environment. Despite the future challenges with the project, its positive aspect outweighs the negatives. With proper design, implementation, and maintenance by nurse informaticists, the project will foster efficient and effective health care services for most users. Significantly, consistent evaluation of the program depending on its usage and efficacy will provide new insights on further improvements to fill existing gaps.(The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies-A Comprehensive Essay Example)

References

Ackerman, M. J., Filart, R., Burgess, L. P., Lee, I., & Poropatich, R. K. (2010). Developing next-generation telehealth tools and technologies: patients, systems, and data perspectives. Telemedicine and e-Health, 16(1), 93-95. https://doi.org/10.1089/tmj.2009.0153

Choi, W. S., Park, J., Choi, J. Y. B., & Yang, J.-S. (2018). Stakeholders’ resistance to telemedicine with focus on physicians: utilizing the Delphi technique. Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare, 1357633X1877585(The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies-A Comprehensive Essay Example). https://dpo.10.1177/1357633×18775853

Lustig, T. A. (2012). The role of telehealth in an evolving health care environment: workshop summary. National Academies Press. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK207144/

McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. (2021). Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.(The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies-A Comprehensive Essay Example)

Nagel, D. A., Pomerleau, S. G., & Penner, J. L. (2012). Knowing, Caring, and Telehealth Technology. Journal of Holistic Nursing, 31(2), 104–112. https://doi.10.1177/0898010112465357  

Scott Kruse, C., Karem, P., Shifflett, K., Vegi, L., Ravi, K., & Brooks, M. (2018). Evaluating barriers to adopting telemedicine worldwide: A systematic review. Journal of telemedicine and telecare, 24(1), 4-12. https://doi.10.1177/1357633X16674087

Totten, A. M., Womack, D. M., Eden, K. B., McDonagh, M. S., Griffin, J. C., Grusing, S., & Hersh, W. R. (2016. Telehealth: Mapping the evidence for patient outcomes from systematic reviews. https://europepmc.org/article/nbk/nbk379320

Wade, V. A., Eliott, J. A., & Hiller, J. E. (2014). Clinician Acceptance is the Key Factor for Sustainable Telehealth Services. Qualitative Health Research, 24(5), 682–694. https://doi.10.1177/1049732314528809