Introduction
Patient safety in the healthcare industry is a discipline that emerged amid evolving complexities in care system and rising harms. The aim is to prevent or reduce potentials risks that occur during care delivery. Patient safety is a key to delivering quality health services, and there is a significant consensus that health services across the world should be safe and effective (Wåhlin et al., 2020).
Technology comprises the use of electronic and AI systems while information relates to data and the communication process (Hassan, 2019). Informatics and technology shape the future of healthcare through the use of mHealth, AI tools, telemedicine, electronic health records, and wearable devices.
Appraising Safety
As healthcare service providers, it is imperative to understand the situation of patients to acknowledge the value of safety. The increasing complexities in healthcare organizations make individuals prone to mistakes. For instance, a patient might end up receiving the wrong prescription due to a mix-up occurring from similar packaging (Wåhlin et al., 2020). Such errors may result from other organizational practices such as lack of proper standards and procedures or poor communications. Upholding the value of safety in the healthcare industry would reduce confusion, risks, and harms.
Stakeholders in the care system have a big role in ensuring no harm occurs to people. They include patients, nurses, nursing educators, society in generals, researchers, and administrators. More examples of teams responsible for maintaining safety include government or legislative bodies, professional associations, and accrediting bodies. Small actions that people take have significant impacts on safety, including the proper practice of Hygiene. For example, regular handwashing by both caregivers and patients is a vital safety behavior. The Center for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) states that handwashing is the best way to stop germs, which prevents infectious illnesses as cited in Wåhlin et al. (2020). Moreover, integrative approaches such as the use of technology to monitor people is crucial in advocating safety.
Appraising Technology and Informatics
One way in which informatics is shaping health care is through an improved outcome. For example, electronic health records (EHR) result in greater and safer health care since coordination between teams provides better diagnoses and reduces chances of errors (Aceto, Persico & Pescapé, 2018). Care is becoming less person amid changes in technology such that doctors can spend less time to know patients in real-time as there is vast data and algorithms. Health informatics supports knowledge of patients, medicines, illnesses, and therapies. As information is passed back and forth, the practice of medicine gets better.
Focusing on health informatics, health marketing cannot be ignored, and this revolves around education that creates a unique niche that professionals and marketers must understand. For example, with informatics, private hospitals can introduce brands in the industry. Moreover, when patients can access their information using digital systems, they become empowered to take care of personal health. The Healthcare system is heavily budgeted, and controlling cost is a paramount and vital role by leaders. Integrated technologies such as Computerized Provider Order Entry systems (CPOE) and Clinical Decision Support (CDSS) help to detect medical errors that cost organizations (Hassan, 2019). However, these change demand assistance from professionals with the right technical capabilities.
Concept Impacts on Nurses’ Clinical Judgement
The concept of safety in the healthcare setting influences nurses’ decisions and approaches to practices by considering their role for better outcomes. Concerning safety, there are key factors impacting clinical judgment on efforts towards safety practices (Wåhlin et al., 2020). They include professional ethics, thoughtful behaviors, relying on evidence-based care, and supporting a learning environment. Professional roles such as leadership, training, and developments increase to reap the maximum value of modern changes. Technology in healthcare is taking effect with great responsibilities, and this forces nurses to advance roles, including leadership, for impactful decisions that will not subject patient acre at risk.
Emerging Health Initiatives on Safety
To ensure safety in the healthcare environment, organizations have considered establishing initiatives to counter problems threatening care before or as they arise. The first measure adopted is an anticipation of harms and risks, which a more proactive safety science requires to foresee or predict potential problems. Being sensitive to the local environment and systems allows researchers to refine interventions based on changes occurring with emerging situations (Gan, 2019). Moreover, ensuring a formal assessment of clinical outcomes is a vital practice for any clinical intervention, and often this continues after the study period.
Emerging Health Initiatives Technology and Informatics
A vital initiative that has emerged is improvement on information to identify race discrimination in healthcare. Health and human service are partnering to measure and track biases in key sector economy including healthcare. Moreover, the department of human services enacts state-level efforts to apply informatics techniques in linking analytical data to numerous sources such as public health, administrative data sources, housing, and criminal justice information.
Nationwide, emerging health informatics network programs provide standards, policies, and services that help build secured and health information infrastructure. With emerging technologies in the care system, organizations and health agencies have embarked on collaborative practices to share information (Aceto, Persico & Pescapé, 2018). For example, the CDC partner with the council of a territorial epidemiologist to promote the implementation of evidence-based reporting.
How to Advance Workplace Communication
As professionals start to use technology and communicate more with others, they should not ignore the value of one-on-one communication. In-person meetings are vital to establishing communication between care providers. Mobile team communication should be applied to encourage top-down or peer-to-peer communication. Healthcare settings have protocols that individuals need to follow, but there must be ways to streamline channels to make it simple and convoluted (Gan, 2019). Given the trend in technology and informatics systems, improving internal communication requires prior assessment of current approaches to avoid costly and potentially fatal mistakes.
Conclusion
Technology and informatics have shape practices in the health care industry. One of the major impacts brought by the digital system includes safety and the provision of quality care. Notably, there are significant roles, benefits, and value of using technology tools in the healthcare industry. For instance, improved work performance, information sharing, evidence-based practices are possible with technological resources. However, the professional role has changed to accommodate new trends, including advancing practices through training for better clinical judgments.
References
- Aceto, G., Persico, V., & Pescapé, A. (2018). The role of Information and Communication Technologies in healthcare: Taxonomies, perspectives, and challenges. Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 107, 125-154.
- Gan, I. (2019). Alternative work arrangements: Reshaping the future of nurses’ workplace communication and relationships. In Nursing forum, 54 (2). 227-231. Web.
- Hassan, G. (2019). Health Care Informatics. International Journal of Internet Education, 18(1), 39-43.
- Wåhlin, C., Kvarnström, S., Öhrn, A., & Nilsing Strid, E. (2020). Patient and healthcare worker safety risks and injuries. Learning from incident reporting. European Journal of Physiotherapy, 22(1), 44-50. Web.