Problems in Healthcare Sector - Essay Example

Patient Safety Critique Blesson Varghese Jacksonville University 08/07/2014 Introduction A system failure refers to the failure in the condition in, which system unable to perform due to inefficient performance of system in accordance with expectation within a particular time or desired manner. System failure in an organization reveals that it may have occurred due to different conditions, which are measurable or involves other reasons that are unseen such as political power or business policies. In regards to St. Anthony Hospital scenario, the occurrence of system failure resulted to a tragic death of a newborn infant in the hospital. Contextually, there were several reasons for the system failure, which includes incomplete clinical information, language barrier, inconsistent procedure for communicating prenatal care, staff inexperience and poor documentation or nonstandard method of writing the drug order among others (Smetzer, 1998). Hence, this assignment tends to examine system failure in the areas of incomplete clinical information as well as staff inexperience and poor documentation causes of system failure. Moreover, in this context, current research article based on the aforementioned system failure causes are evaluated. Incomplete Clinical Information Patient medical records are commonly used methods to measure patient safety, as these reports highlight major healthcare information (Rosen, 2010). According to medical records of patient’s contain detailed clinical records and often encompass information regarding the safety measures and the immediate circumstances based on which the process of systematic detection as well as measuring the safety events are conducted. Medical records and information that recorded through paper-based instruments are costly and significantly requires more staff. System failure is caused due to the fact that clinical or medical records of patients may be variable and unavailable for insufficient as well as incompetency data. In this context, the system fails to provide needful healthcare service to patients (Rosen, 2010). A study on healthcare reveals the fact that around 20-30% of healthcare information is either unavailable or missing (Healthcare IT News, 2005). At the time of making decision by physician, patients or caretakers, insufficient availability of clinical data may lead to medical problems (Healthcare IT News, 2005). In this context, Smetzer (1998) signified that incomplete clinical information of Miguel Sanchez, who is mother of newborn male infant recognized with the problem related to syphilis. In St. Anthony Hospital, the staff failed to maintain proper medical records that resulted in the overall increase of the possibility of congenital syphilis in Miguel Sanchez, which could have been avoided if proper information about his mother was available with the virtues of effective information systems (Smetzer, 1998). Prevention of diseases is an integral part of healthcare and accordingly, information regarding healthcare plays a significant role in detection of causes. Healthcare records of patients are determined to be more prominent as compared to private information of patients as well as employees. Healthcare organizations are required to adopt legal, ethical and moral duty to keep clinical records protected by ensuing proper security and privacy measures. Higher degree of control and privacy is significant to safeguard any unauthorized access to patient’s information. In this regard, precautions regarding privacy, safety, and confidentiality of information are needed in order to mitigate the issue of system failure at the time of requirements of patients. Furthermore, physicians must regularly update records of patients in order to properly format regarding diagnosis, health conditions and medications (1AHIMA, 2008). Quality healthcare is dependent on availability of information about healthcare. Poor, inadequate and insufficient data in communication process will adversely affect care as well as treatment services offered to patients. Accounting Care Organizations addresses such problems and specially emphasizing meaningful, collection, sharing and reporting information of healthcare records of patients in proper sequence (2AHIMA, 2013). According to Romano & Stafford (2011) many healthcare centers give prior importance to clinical reports appropriately recorded in order to provide increases health care services to patients. Healthcare information based on electronic records provides substantial efficiency to administrative operations as compare to paper records. Furthermore, Romano & Stafford (2011) also revealed that lack of quality data will increase the rate of inappropriate treatments and care services (Romano & Stafford, 2011). Staff Inexperience and Poor Documentation Staff incompetence and inexperience is also identified as one of major reasons of system failure for healthcare providers owing to growing needs of workforce led to the recruitment of inexperienced staff in new as well as existing healthcare sector. Subsequently, deficiency of competent and experienced staff is accountable for system failure, because care providers fail to understand the severity of patients’ conditions, medical errors, incorrect doses, poor communication and improper documentation. In this context, clinical staff provided with proper documentation of patients’ medical reports would assist in offering effective treatment services. Furthermore, staff inexperience and poor documentation problem reflects direct effect on the patients’ health’s, which led to increase system failure and adversely affects the health of patients (Health Quality & Safety Commission New Zealand, 2010). In this context, Smetzer (1998) revealed that incompetence of staff in St. Anthony Hospital to treat syphilis required local neonatologist specialist to treat newborn male infant of Miguel Sanchez (Smetzer, 1998). As per the problem of system failure, hospital administrations need to put special importance in recruiting as well as training staff for effective management. Precautions are essential in the field of better leadership and significant training that plays an imperative role to build expertise hospital staff. Proper learning and training the staff members increases productivity and avoid human errors (Informa, n.d.). Healthcare conditions depend on services provided by healthcare personnel. In this context, inexperience and poor documentation will adversely affect the operations of a healthcare organization. Administration and human resource management will be responsible for addressing the problems and focuses on providing proper learning and training to inexperience staffs, which with enabling them to keep proper records. In this regards, Stone et al., (2011) stated that poor performance in clinical practices along with current practices in a healthcare organization are unsatisfactory, which will create problems leading to system failure. Additionally, better data reporting and effective care as well as treatment services would improve healthcare outcomes. In addition, Stone et al., (2011) noted that poor performance of healthcare management adversely affect care as well as treatment services (Stone et al., 2011). Conclusion From the above discussion, it can be comprehended that a system failure is one of the major problems in healthcare sector, which arises due to failure in the information system. There are different reasons based on which the system is unable to perform as expected. Incomplete clinical information and inexperience staffing and poor documentation are two important factors encountered by healthcare organizations during the course of operation. Furthermore, certain precautionary measures will help healthcare providers to modify the issue of system failure. Thus, it can be concluded that in order to ensure stability in the performance of healthcare organizations is required to place considerable focus on mitigating system failure risk factors through effective use of best precautionary resources and measure. Thus, from the above discussion it can be recommended that accounting care department and patient too should be responsible enough to record the information and keep a check of its regular updation that in turn helps to eradicate the problem related to incomplete clinical information. Furthermore, proper training and development program with responsible staff members in the administration department will help to resolve the problem related to inexperienced staffing and poor documentation that had led to system failure in St. Anthony Hospital. References 1AHIMA. (2008). Security of personal health information. Ensuring Security of High Risk Information in EHRs Journal of AHIMA 79(9), 67-71. 2AHIMA. (2013). Assessing and Improving EHR Data Quality. Journal of AHIMA, 84(2), 48-53. Healthcare IT News. (2005). Peter Basch on incomplete medical records. Retrieved from http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/peter-basch-incomplete-medical-records Health Quality & Safety Commission New Zealand. (2010). Making our hospitals safer. Retrieved from http://www.hqsc.govt.nz/assets/Reportable-Events/Publications/Making-our-Hospitals-Safer.-Serious-and-Sentinel-Events-2009-2010-Lkd.pdf Informa, (n.d.). Leadership & training essential for staff satisfaction in the operating room. Retrieved from http://www.healthcareconferences.ca/healthcare-conferences-canada/leadership-training-essential-for-staff-satisfaction-in-the-operating-room Romano, M. J., & Stafford, R. S. (2011). Electronic health record clinical decision support systems and national ambulatory care quality. Arch Intern Med, 171(10), 897–903. Rosen, A. K. (2010). Are we getting better at measuring patient safety? Retrieved from http://webmm.ahrq.gov/perspective.aspx?perspectiveID=94 Smetzer, J. L. (1998). Lesson from Colorado. Beyond blaming individuals. Nurs Manage, 29(6), 49-51. Stone, K., Traynor, M., Gould, D., & Maben, J. (2011). The management of poor performance in nursing and midwifery: a case for concern. 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