Impact of EHR on Professional Nursing Practice - Essay Example

"Impact of EHR on Professional Nursing Practice" is an excellent example of a paper on care.
Electronic Health Records (EHR) have had an impact on both the patient and healthcare providers. Most importantly, for nurses, who spend most of the time managing the patients, this technology would be of great importance in easing practice. This essay provides details on the impact of EHR on the practice of nurses and enhancing patient safety.

Impact of EHR on Professional Nursing Practice

First, the EHR can improve communication between different healthcare workers, and this goes a long way to better the coordination of care. The ultimate to improved communication is improved health outcomes. In the current dispensation, there are efforts to ensure proper documentation and requirements which support clinical practice, comply with billing standards, and ensure the security and privacy of the EHR. More, the technology can increase organizational efficiency, and this has led to reduced workload, reduced fatigue in hospitals. Thus a reduced length of hospital stays, thus saving costs incurred by the patients.

Advanced Practitioner Nurses who are licensed to prescribe can experience improved practice when technology is in place. There are fewer medication errors, which, therefore, improves their confidence and reputation, encouraging them to practice better (Flach et al., 2018). When nurses improve in their practice, there are reduced chances of medical lawsuits over the erroneous practice of medical errors. 

Impact EHR on Vulnerable Populations

The vulnerable populations are those who are unable to access the usually necessary care because of financial constraints, health challenges, age, personal characteristics, developmental status, chronic illness, or inability to communicate well. Some of the notably vulnerable populations include long-term patients with physical, cognitive, and functional disabilities; complex medical diseases or chronic illnesses, serious mental illnesses or substance abuse disorders; developmental disabilities, and short-term rehabilitation needs.

The use of EHR offers healthcare providers an opportunity to communicate with patients in a more cost-effective manner. Proper communication also means better attention is given to the patients. Therefore, the care provided would be equitable compared to the one given to healthy people (Khangura, Grimshaw, & Moher, n.d.). The use of EHR also makes healthcare workers follow up on patients without necessarily compelling them to visit healthcare facilities.  

The EHR also makes it possible for healthcare providers to keep the data for the vulnerable population. This provides an opportunity to determine the best care being given to the patients. The use of technology in healthcare also compensates for the deficits of the patients; in the end, there is equitable healthcare, and this ensures better services and proper outcomes in the long run.  

Healthcare settings

Some of the most common services sought by the patients are ambulatory services. The incorporation of technology in healthcare helps to ease congestion, enabling a faster and efficient flow of services. First, technology makes it possible for patients to be triaged. It, therefore, allows the healthcare workers to know their priority based on the data stored in the electronic system. To add, it is easy to schedule patient appointments, and this makes it possible for patients to be attended to faster, and this is also related to the recorded data at a particular time. The use of EHR enables access to complete and accurate information, and patients can receive the best medical care. It has been shown that 94% of healthcare providers have records readily at their disposal. Further, it produces clinical benefits in practice. 

Patient Safety: evidence about the technology

Numerous benefits have been reported to accrue to the patients when EHR is put into good practice. The patient has reduced the burden of having to fill forms every time they visit hospitals for care. There is also ease of referral for the patient and even follow-up after that. The use of technology has also been shown to potentially transform the healthcare system from a peer-based industry to one that makes use of clinical practice. In the end, the information makes it possible for the providers to deliver a better quality of care to the patients (Idescat, 2016). In other evidence, allowing the use of technology reduces the redundancy of the tests since information is available in the database and can be accessed with ease.

Patient Safety: examples using the technology

Through the use of EHR, there is a possibility to organize and analyze huge amounts of data. There has also been better surveillance of infectious diseases and improved management of chronic diseases, which then enhances the outcomes. Also, the use of EHR reduces the fragmentation of the data and thus increases the continuous provision of care as many providers participate (Kruse, Stein, Thomas, & Kaur, 2018). The use of EHR is cost-effective; there is an increase in the patient's quality of life and, hence, better health.

Potential improvements for the technology    

There have been postulations on the possible improvement of the use of EHR and make it more efficient. Some features have proposed, and they include the checkboxes as well as shortcut functions. The proposed features would then allow for the rapid inclusion of the standard phrases hence make it possible to capture more complex data (Liou, Lu, Hu, Cheng, & Chuang, 2017). Based on evidence from Columbia University, there has been a suggestion to include the "print prescription" function in the system to aid in the increase in medication compliance.