Background
Hospitals and healthcare organizations are facing demands to integrate the innovations inpatient care. Technology is continuously evolving each day, and most hospitals have a dilemma in the determination of which new platform is worth their investment. For example, what are the best current technologies that will enhance doctors and nurse care on an oncology floor? Therefore, healthcare organizations are in search of advanced solutions that can improve patient care and their outcomes in general.
Innovative Technology to Support Staffing and Patient Flow in Oncology
The best innovative technology that can be used on the oncology floor is computerized physician order entry (CPOE). This system prevents medical errors by ensuring that nurses do not read doctors’ handwritten notes. In some instances, it also saves time spent on trying to understand the content of the doctors’ unclear handwriting. The physician gives orders electronically, and this prevents transcription errors. Thus, nurse-doctor consultation is minimal, enhancing patient care on the cancer floor (Mummadi & Mishra, 2018). Since all the client history is recorded in the system, in case of any allergy to certain medications, the system will notify the medical personnel.
Moreover, a Bar Code system of Medication Administration (BCMA) should be incorporated in nursing care. It requires the nurse to scan the patient’s arm and their medications before allowing the client to use them. If it is the correct prescription for the right patient at the accurate time, the electronic system will approve. A study done in Houston Hospital in Texas indicated a reduction of the chemotherapy order errors by 75% after the implementation of CPOE (Chung et al., 2018). It is because the method reduces drug errors such as duplication.
Policy for the Ethical use of Clinical Information Systems
The policy should contain personal privacy, access right, reporting of data display, and patient safety components. Healthcare providers should strive to keep confidentiality and privacy of patient information. Some behaviors such as leaving the computers unattended and not logged out can breach privacy. The procedure should therefore give the guidelines and clauses to follow. The care providers should also limit access to client information. Third parties which include relatives of the sick individual. should also be denied access. The policy should contain HIPAA guidelines on compliance to remind the caregiver of their obligations and consequences of a breach of the evidence.
The policies should incorporate the health care ethical and moral principles. For instance, autonomy is jeopardized when a patient’s health record is leaked by the provider either intentionally or unintentionally. Exposure of client data leads to mistakes and theft breaches fidelity. These values, among others, should guide the policymakers in formulating health information technology guidelines (Sulmasy et al., 2017). Therefore, justice is compromised when an ailing individual’s socio-economic position hinders them from access to some of the health information resources.
Moreover, policies that offer trust in health information and provide effective security increase care quality. Solid privacy healthcare policies reduce the number of times clients can access their health records and increase the perceived quality of care. A study by Abdelhamid et al, (2017) shows that ethical policy on protected patient information promotes trust from patients and reduces privacy concerns among sick people, consequently increasing the quality of care. All these innovations should be inconsistent with the responsibility of giving priority to the sick as per ethics.
Technology to Support Patient Education and Reduce Readmission in Cardiology
The healthcare facility should use an interactive patient education technology process, and the best way is to create an electronic patient portal. The system should contain all the existing health history as well as current treatment. The structure should also have a domain for risk factors for patients’ condition and the adherable health messages. It should allow a patient to interact with the doctors, make appointments, and request refills of their drugs.
A systematic review done by Dendere et al, (2019) indicated that EPP improves medication adherence among patients, promotes awareness of risk factors and lifestyle. It also enhances communication between the sick individual and healthcare provider, generally improving the recovery process. A study done in a small community between 2003 and 2013 indicated a reduction in heart failure-related mortality rates by 45% when telehealth and patient portal education were used (Agbola, 2017). Therefore, patient portals allow the ailing person to track their daily routines such as the number of calories taken and exercise patterns.
Important Technological Security Measures
Health awareness to the staff regarding security measures is an essential tool in providing health care. The most important security measures include password management, recognition of both possible security threats and security updates, and email encryption. The medical team should receive education on the above procedures and adherence to HIPAA policies. Understanding the security measures will always promote the security of the protected health information (PHI).
Consequently, the implementation of firewalls and cryptography protects the information of the institution. Kruse et al, (2017) state the use of packet filtering or status firewall as an effective measure in denying hackers access to organization’s information. It also hides the IP address of the organization preventing unauthorized persons from accessing the establishments’ material. End-to-end encryption, which is a form of cryptography, prevents third parties from retrieving patient data during the exchange of patients between healthcare workers. Therefore, the two measures can offer effective security to organizations’ information.
References
Abdelhamid, M., Gaia, J., & Sanders, G. L. (2017). Putting the focus back on the patient: How privacy concerns affect personal health information sharing intentions. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 19(9), e169.
Chung, C., Patel, S., Lee, R., Fu, L., Reilly, S., Ho, T., Lionetti, J., George, M. D., & Taylor, P. (2018). Implementation of an integrated computerized prescriber order-entry system for chemotherapy in a multisite safety-net health system. American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy, 75(6), 398–406.
Dendere, R., Slade, C., Burton-Jones, A., Sullivan, C., Staib, A., & Janda, M. (2019). Patient portals facilitating engagement with inpatient electronic medical records: A systematic review. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 21(4), e12779.
Kruse, C. S., Smith, B., Vanderlinden, H., & Nealand, A. (2017). Security techniques for the electronic health records. Journal of Medical Systems, 41(8), 127.
Mummadi, S. R., & Mishra, R. (2018). Effectiveness of provider price display in computerized physician order entry (CPOE) on healthcare quality: A systematic review. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 25(9), 1228–1239.
Sulmasy, L. S., López, A. M., Horwitch, C. A., & American College of Physicians Ethics, Professionalism and Human Rights Committee (2017). Ethical implications of the electronic health record: In the service of the patient. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 32(8), 935–939.