Nursing informatics project proposal to improve patient outcomes or patient-care efficiency
In a 4- to 5-page project proposal written to the leadership of your healthcare organization, propose a nursing informatics project for your organization that you advocate to improve patient outcomes or patient-care efficiency. Your project proposal should include the following:
Describe the project you propose.
Identify the stakeholders impacted by this project.
Explain the patient outcome(s) or patient-care efficiencies this project is aimed at improving and explain how this improvement would occur. Be specific and provide examples.
Identify the technologies required to implement this project and explain why.
Identify the project team (by roles) and explain how you would incorporate the nurse informaticist in the project team.
Use APA format and include a title page and reference page.
Use the Safe Assign Drafts to check your match percentage before submitting your work.
Use 3 or more peer-reviewed research articles and 2 or course resources
Nursing informatics project proposal to improve patient outcomes or patient-care efficiency
Description of the Proposed Project
In contemporary times, it is important for healthcare organizations to leverage the use of technology to improve patient care outcomes while also enhancing the efficiency of patient care delivery. It is important to introduce effective strategies that rely on technology to improve patient outcomes in the healthcare organization (Tolf et al., 2020). In this project proposal, the implementation of a nursing informatics solution will be advocated. The nursing informatics solution that will be advocated for in the project proposal is the clinical decision support system CDSS which will be combined with the electronic health records system. The introduction of the clinical decision support system in combination with the electronic health record system will therefore help to support nurse decision-making in the healthcare facility, which will go a long way in enhancing patient safety and promoting quality care outcomes. The clinical decision support system (CDSS) will also go a long way in enhancing decision-making among nurses and reducing the risk of medication errors in healthcare facilities (O’Sullivan et al., 2020). Combined with the electronic health record system, the CDSS will therefore ensure that nurses always have comprehensive information related to the patients, including the medical history, allergies, medication lab results, and other information that will help them to make decisions in the treatment of patients (O’Sullivan et al., 2020).
Stakeholders Impacted By This Project
The stakeholders that will be impacted by the project include the introduction of the clinical decision support system that will be combined with the electronic health record system will include the executive leadership in a healthcare facility, unit managers, physicians, charge nurses, nurse informaticists, and the nursing staff. Each stakeholder will play an active role in the implementation of the project, with different roles ranging from allocating resources to implement the project, supervising the project, educating the nursing staff on how to utilize the clinical decision support system, and evaluating the effectiveness of the project.
Patient Outcomes and Patient-Care Efficiencies
One of the main contributors to adverse outcomes among patients in a healthcare facility is medication errors. It is estimated that at least 7,000 to 9000 Americans die every year because of medication errors (Alqenae et al., 2020). Medication errors also account for nearly 100,000 hospitalizations every year across the U.S., with nearly 7% of all patients exposed to medication errors. The occurrence of medication errors will contribute to a longer length of hospitalization among patients with a significant increase in the probability of poor outcomes in a given patient. Normally nurses play an important role in reinforcing patient safety. Nursing errors in medication administration and medication malpractices have there ever been shown to be some of the most underreported medical problems in the world (Alqenae et al., 2020). Medication administration errors among nurses, therefore, have a significant negative impact on the healthcare costs associated with a patient’s quality of life and the delivery of nursing care as a whole. Different studies have indicated that the prevalence of medication errors among nurses is more than 70%, with only 40% of such cases being reported. Nearly half of all the cases of medication errors involving nurses are related to the administration of the wrong medication (Rasool et al., 2020).
Coming up with effective strategies to prevent medication errors among nurses is an issue of importance in healthcare facilities. The use of technology, such as the introduction of the clinical decision support system, can therefore go a long way in reducing medication errors in a healthcare facility.
The proposed project aims to improve patient outcomes by reducing medication errors and improving the accuracy and speed of nursing decision-making. The CDSS will provide alerts and notifications for potential medication errors and drug interactions. Additionally, the EHR will provide nurses with access to real-time patient data, which will reduce the time spent retrieving patient information from multiple sources. The informatics solution will enhance communication and collaboration among healthcare professionals, resulting in improved patient care coordination. For example, for a patient that is receiving medication for hypertension, the nurse can rely on the CDSS to understand the current medication that the patient is taking and administer additional medication that will not have any interaction with the patient’s current dosage. The CDSS will also help the nurse to administer the medication in the right dosage and avoid any medication errors (O’Sullivan et al., 2020).
Technologies Required In the Implementation of the Project
The technology required in the implementation of the CDSS project will include a drug interaction module, an advanced medication module, and an allergy alert module. This new technology will help to provide notifications to nurses when they are administering medication to a patient (O’Sullivan et al., 2020). The clinical decision support system will also integrate with other health information systems to provide real-time access to patient data. Such a system needs to integrate effectively with the electronic health record system. The CDSS will also need to be user-friendly, with a simple interface that requires minimal training among nurses (O’Sullivan et al., 2020).
Project Team and Roles
The executive leadership in the healthcare facility will have a representative in the project team for implementing CDSS. The executive leadership will play the role of approving the implementation of the CDSS project and providing the necessary financial resources to implement the project. The unit leaders in a healthcare facility are also important in the implementation of the CDSS project. The unit leaders in the healthcare facility will help in the formation of the CDSS project implementation team. The unit leaders will be in charge of the project implementation team to educate the nurses on how to utilize the clinical decision-making system (Tolf et al., 2020). The physicians in the healthcare facility will also play an active role in the implementation of the CDSS, which will include providing effective strategies for change implementation in the healthcare facility. The charge nurses in the healthcare facility will also be the main champions of the change relating to the implementation of the CDSS. The charge nurses will be actively involved in teaching regular nurses how to use the CDSS to make better decisions and avoid medication errors. The nurse informaticist will also play a significant role in the project team charged with introducing the CDSS system in a healthcare facility. The nurse informaticist will work with the information technology team and ensure that the CDSS system provided by the IT team is user-friendly in a way that nurses can learn how to use it with minimal training. Finally, the nurses in the healthcare facility will play an important role in evaluating the user-friendliness of the new CDSS system and proposing any improvements that can be adopted in the future (Tolf et al., 2020).
References
Alqenae, F. A., Steinke, D., & Keers, R. N. (2020). Prevalence and Nature of Medication Errors and Medication-Related Harm Following Discharge from Hospital to Community Settings: A Systematic Review. Drug Safety, 43(6). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40264-020-00918-3
O’Sullivan, D., Fraccaro, P., Carson, E., & Weller, P. (2020). Decision time for clinical decision support systems. Clinical Medicine, 14(4), 338–341. https://doi.org/10.7861/clinmedicine.14-4-338
Rasool, M. F., Rehman, A. ur, Imran, I., Abbas, S., Shah, S., Abbas, G., Khan, I., Shakeel, S., Ahmad Hassali, M. A., & Hayat, K. (2020). Risk Factors Associated With Medication Errors Among Patients Suffering From Chronic Disorders. Frontiers in Public Health, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2020.531038
Tolf, S., Mesterton, J., Söderberg, D., Amer-Wåhlin, I., & Mazzocato, P. (2020). How can technology support quality improvement? Lessons learned from the adoption of an analytics tool for advanced performance measurement in a hospital unit. BMC Health Services Research, 20(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-020-05622-7
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