Post a thoughtful response to at least two (2) other colleagues’ initial postings. Responses to colleagues should be supportive and helpful (examples of an acceptable comment are: “This is interesting – in my practice, we treated or resolved (diagnosis or issue) with (x, y, z meds, theory, management principle) and according to the literature…” and add supportive reference. Avoid comments such as “I agree” or “good comment.”

• Response Post: Sat, Feb 16 by 8:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST) of the US – (the response posts cannot be done on the same day as the initial post).

References:

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• Response posts: Minimum of one (1) total reference: one (1) from peer-reviewed or course materials reference per response.

Words Limits

• Response posts: Minimum 100 words excluding references.

Culture and safety related to health info technology

Technology has had a huge impact on healthcare advances. It has helped better our careers and made things easier all the way from electronic charting to robotic surgeries. Technology has helped save lives, restart arrested hearts, alleviate suffering, and help decrease some diseases (Burkhardt & Nathaniel, 2014). Unfortunately, there are still flaws and safety issues that will always need to be worked out. The computers can only be as smart as the people who help make them. At Howard University Hospital during May 2013, a medical technician used the software to access to patients’ personal information and sell it (Ozair, Jamshed, Sharma, & Aggarwal, 2015). Online and electronic health records can seem very beneficial until they end up in the wrong hands.

There are two different types of health IT issues. The first issue can be between the computer user and the software program directly. The second is how the equipment and software function together. In the case study it seems like the equipment and software did not coincide. The electronic medical administration record cut off a vital part of the morphine order. The nurses could not tell which one was the extended dose and which one was the immediate release. This situation ended up putting the patient into respiratory distress. The patient required intubation solely because of a medication administration error. This error causes an unnecessary intubation and if the patient was not assessed as soon as he was, he might not have survived.

Errors tend to happen when a new upgrade or device is available. My hospital upgraded to EPIC charting system a year ago and it was a struggle to get used to it. The physicians were not able to put orders in correctly during the first week which caused additional issues for the rest of the team. I love EPIC now and find it very user friendly. They are constantly adding best practice advisories and different workflow tip sheets. Whenever there is an upgrade the IT team notifies us weeks ahead of time and lets us practice using it in a learning environment called the playground. Nurse leaders can help establish a culture of safety related to health IT by encouraging collaborating with different departments and notifying each other of any near misses or possible concerns. They can also run different audits to see if there are any flaws throughout the systems and do unit walkarounds to touch base with nurses using the software and watching the process in real time. There are always going to be positives and negatives with any type of healthcare advances and changes.

References

Burkhardt, M. A., & Nathaniel, A. K. (2014). Ethics and issues in contemporary nursing (4 ed.). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.

Ozair, F., Jamshed, N., Sharma, A., & Aggarwal, P. (2015). Ethical issues in electronic health records: A general overview. US National Library of Medicine, 6. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC43945…

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