Hospital Management Systems: Nursing Informatics and Leadership - Essay Example

?NURSING INFORMATICS NURSING INFORMATICS Currently, across the world healthcare organizations are prone to many challenges including fiscal restraints, staff shortages, and prolonged patient wait time, coupled with the aging population that needs complex medical care. In order to deliver exemplary patient care with enhanced efficiency, technological advances have been made and now there are various Hospital Management Systems on the market that are aimed at salvaging the problem. HMS have made it easy to capture, record and retrieve patient records. This paper will discuss two Hospital Management Systems that have proved effective in improving patient care and managing the entire hospital. The MediNous Hospital Management System from Mentis Soft Solutions Pvt Ltd and ELECTRA from InfoTech Limited are the systems discussed here. The importance of HMS to nurses and how they can be used to improve patient care are also discussed. Hospital Management System (HMS) This is electronic software designed to help hospitals or nursing homes to store/update and retrieve data online. The system reduces paper work activities while also providing help to Doctors and operational staff in providing care to patients and for administration purposes. For instance, information can be speedily stored and retrieved electronically (Geering, et, al., 2006). There are several HMS designed and configured to help Hospitals and Nursing Homes improve care for patients; this paper will discuss and evaluate two types of HMS systems. The MediNous Hospital Management System; this system is a product of Mentis Soft Solutions Pvt Ltd. It was designed to streamline hospital operations thus enhancing administration and control of the Hospital, delivering excellent patient care, has strict cost control while at the same time improving hospital profitability (MEDINOUS, 2012). The Software is powerful, flexible and easy to operate as it was designed and developed to tremendously help hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes in real and conceivable profits. The system was designed for a myriad range of hospital operations; for instance the software has the following modules that are essential in day today hospital operations (MEDINOUS, 2012). These modules include: Helpdesk, Patient Registration, Outpatient Management, Doctor’s Workbench/CPOE, Inpatient and Ward Management, Patient Billing and Insurance, Pharmacy, General Stores/Inventory, laboratory Information System, Radiology Management, Electronic Medical Record (EMR) and Dietary, House keeping, Nursing Module, Emergency Management, Blood Bank, CSSD, Financial Accounting module, Payroll, User manager module, and Services module (MEDINOUS, 2012). In regard to the above modules, MediNous HMS provides a wide platform over which relevant information across the hospital that is essential in decision making. Consequently, the system is key to improved patient care, hospital administration together with helping in critical financial accounting decisions. ELECTRA is a Hospital Management System manufactured by ACG Infotech Limited, this is a software product designed to enhance the value and quality of patient care coupled with management of clinical care, and hospital health care management especially in clinical process analysis and activity based costing (ACG Infotech Limited, 2010). This system is vital in developing the hospital while improving its effectiveness in delivering quality patient care services. Accordingly, ELECTRA Hospital Information System helps in managing key patient care processes, for example the system has management elements for modeling, analysis, and simulation (ACG Infotech Limited, 2010). ELECTRA comes with the following benefits: it helps doctors to serve their patients professionally and efficiently, helps nurses to deliver improved patient care, facilitates increased nursing productivity, increased efficiency; the also system provides better quality of care, procedures and service to patients, and the system has control over costs exhibited by diagnosis-related groups. The ELECTRA HMS has the following modules: Registration and inquiry management, Appointment and Queue management, EMR, Casualty and management, Inpatient Admission – Discharge- Transfer, Pharmacy management, Laboratory Information System, Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, PACS radiology, Operation Theatres Management, Nursing and Ward management, Service order processing, ambulance service management, bed census management, quality assurance Stores and inventory management, billing and financial accounting, TPA and insurance management, patient referral system, HR and payroll system, duty roster management, physiotherapy and rehabilitation, dietary management, CSSD, house-keeping and laundry management, bio-medical waste management, management information system, and telemedicine (ACG Infotech Limited, 2010). Importance of Hospital Management System Nursing Homes and Hospitals require electronic management systems to effectively improve care for patients, tremendously reduce the operating costs and for efficient hospital management. Given this fact, there are several Hospital Management Systems on the market designed to effectively improve care for patients (Geering, et, al., 2006). HMS also helps hospitals and nursing homes to attend to the rapidly growing number of patients effectively and efficiently and at a cost – effective manner. Furthermore, the hospital administration will use the HMS to significantly improve operational control as the system is aimed at streamlining all hospital operations (Geering, et, al., 2006). The system also saves time whereby senior doctors will have valuable time to spend in clinical activities rather than attending to clerical activities. Similarly, HMS improves the response time with regard to the demands of the ever increasing need of improved patient care, for instance the care process is automated; collecting and retrieving of patient information process will be easier and within a shorter time. The HMS software comes with interfaces configured for special jobs and thus help in reducing the time spend in delivering care services to patients. Additionally, accounting operations are sometimes awful, tedious and complex, the HMS comes with an accounting module that eliminate these complexities as collecting and retrieval of accounting information is easier as compared to the manual system (Geering, et, al., 2006). Importance of active involvement in the implementation The inclusion or involvement of nurses in the HMS implementation is key in ensuring that they fully comply with the new system. For instance, it will give them an opportunity to fully understand how the system works, how to operate it and use it in enhancing patient care services. Nevertheless, it will reduce the hospital’s cost of training nurses on how to use the new HMS; a substantial part of the training will be during this implementation period (Geering, et, al., 2006). Further, their involvement will ensure that uncertainties and confusion of using different HMS modules is eliminated and therefore their roles and responsibilities will be well defined and not confused (Lewis, 2001). Nurses will also be acquainted with primary knowledge and practice of using the system first hand from system developers rather than from a training officer. In the same line of argument, the nurses will be able to identify compliance risks and effective methods of mitigating those risks (Lewis, 2001). Taking part in the implementation process nurses are offered a tremendous opportunity for ensuring safe and efficient use of technology; for instance they will deeply examine the performance of the new technology on challenging scenarios in a simulated setting. Nonetheless, if the staging implementation method is used, it minimizes the load related to training and behavioral changes. Staged implementation also gives nurses chance to formatively evaluate the system and see if it will actually ease their work and improve patient care (Lewis, 2001). Hand held devices used by nurses and how they can be integrated into management systems The handheld devices used by nurses are designed to reduce errors and adverse events like medication errors, miscommunication, delays in treatment, and adverse events including falls, nosocomial infections, pressure ulcers, failure to rescue, and complication in mobility. The hand held devices and computers help in improving efficiency and speed of nursing documentation (Kuiper, 2008). For instance, these devices are incorporated into EMR (Electronic Medical Record) system thus helping to speedily enter vital symptoms together with nursing documentation at the bedside. This documentation is essential in reducing communication errors and omissions; this greatly improves patient care. Electronic handheld devices are used by nurses as resource tools and hence provide information to nurses wherever they are without returning to the nursing station. PDAs, clocks, and timers assist in medication and treatment reminders and any other activities deemed fit by nurses (Kuiper, 2008). These devices are also essential in capturing, transposing, and retrieving records and hence they are vital for management purposes (Greenfield, 2007). Owing to these facts, handheld devices with or without integration they are important management tools. Security Standards, Patient Confidentiality and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Electronic systems the world over are prone to security lapses and hence confidential information is always at risk of being exposed to unauthorized access if proper security and confidentiality measures are not upheld. Like any other electronic system HMS risk exposing confidential patient information (Geering, et, al., 2006). In order to uphold security and confidentiality, patient information should and must be password protected on all electronic devices and computers. PDAs in EMR should have passwords; when being used as resource for information capturing and storage and retrieving security settings must be put in place. Moreover, when transferring information from one computer to another via email, the information should be encrypted to prevent unauthorized access to vital and confidential information (Kuiper, 2008). HIPAA compliant security settings must be installed on PDAs and other electronic devices to make sure that the hospital comply with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act which demands protection of patient confidential information lest they face heavy law suits and fines (Kuiper, 2008). HMS and its Effect on Healthcare Cost Hospital Management System is an essential tool in cutting rather decreasing the hospital’s operating cost while increasing staff efficiency in delivering their services and improving patient care (Lewis, 2001). Consequently, the HMS requires less number of personnel to attend to many patients effectively and efficiently within a short time. Further, the system not only delivers excellent patient care but also increases profitability of the hospital. HMS also helps Hospitals and Nursing homes streamline their operations both in administration, control, accounting management and offering superior patient care (ACG Infotech Limited, 2010).. Benefits of HMS to patient care and nursing delivery HMS has benefits cutting across any hospital or nursing home that decides to acquire and implement it. For instance, it enables hospitals, nursing homes and doctors to serve their patients with superior care which culminates into improved quality of patient care (ACG Infotech Limited, 2010). Nurses are also facilitated to provide patient care timely, with precision, and capturing, recording and disseminating information quickly thus improving patient care. In the same line of argument, better quality of care, procedures and services to patients is extremely enhanced when using the HMS (Kuiper, 2008). Recommendation The best HMS system that is versatile and which will serve the hospital outstandingly and meeting all patient care requirements while executing excellent administrative and management requirements, is the ELECTRA system of InfoTech Limited. This system has a wide range of modules that are essential for managing all hospital’s operations while also allowing nurses to execute improved quality patient care. For instance, the ELECTRA stands out as an exceptional system that will meet all hospital’s needs and enhances nursing while also improving patient care (ACG Infotech Limited, 2010). References Kuiper, R. (2008). Use of personal digital assistants to support clinical reasoning in undergraduate baccalaureate nursing students. CIN: Computers, Informatics Nursing, 26, 90-98 Greenfield, S. (2007). Medication error reduction and the use of PDA technology. Journal of Nursing Education, 46, 127-131. Lewis, A. ( 2001).  Handheld technology: The newest practice tool for nurses? Online Journal of Nursing Informatics (OJNI). Vol. 5, No. 1. Retrieved on 6/8/2012; From; http://www.hhdev.psu.edu/nurs/ojni/handheld_technology.htm ACG Infotech Limited (2010) Hospital Management Information System (HMIS) (An electronic Management) http://www.acgil.com/products/hospital_management_system.htm MEDINOUS (2012) Hospital Management System. Retrieved on 6/8/2012; From; http://www.medinous.com/ Gearing, P., Olney, C., Davis, K., Lozano, D., Smith, L.B., & Friedman, B. (2006). Patient Safety -Enhancing Patient Safety through Electronic Medical Record Documentation of Vital Signs [Electronic version]. Journal of Healthcare Information Management , 40-45. Read More