NURS 5051/6051 Week 5 Electronic Health Records Essay Assignment

To improve the quality of our health care while lowering its cost, we will make the immediate investments necessary to ensure that within 5 years all of America’s medical records are computerized. This will cut waste, eliminate red tape, and reduce the need to repeat expensive medical tests.

—Barack Obama (2009)

President Obama’s quote epitomizes the urgency surrounding electronic health records (EHRs). In February 2009, the passage of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act designated nearly $26 billion dollars’ worth of funding to promote the rapid adoption and meaningful use of EHRs (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2012). Despite this surge of support for the adoption of electronic health records, many challenges to their implementation have persisted in the subsequent years.

This week, you explore the implementation of electronic health records. You consider the benefits and challenges of the implementation process and how nurses can fulfill the role of change agents.

Learning Objectives

Students will:

Appraise strategies for overcoming barriers to the implementation of electronic health records
Apply Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation to the implementation of an electronic health record
Analyze the role of nurses as change agents

NURS 5051/6051 Week 5 Discussion: Electronic Health Records

Electronic health records (EHRs) are at the center stage of the effort to improve health care quality and control costs. In addition to allowing medical practitioners to access and record clinical documentation at much faster rates, EHRs are also positively influencing care delivery and nurse-patient interaction. Yet despite the potential benefits of EHRs, their implementation can be a formidable task that has broad-reaching implications for an entire health care organization.

In this Discussion, you appraise strategies for obtaining the benefits and overcoming the challenges of implementing and using electronic health records.

To prepare

Review the Learning Resources focusing on the implementation of EHRs in an organization. Reflect on the various approaches used.
If applicable, consider your own experiences with implementing EHRs. What were some positive aspects of the implementation? What suggestions would you make to improve the process?
Reflect on the reactions of others during the implementation process. Were concerns handled effectively?
If you have not had any experiences with an EHR implementation, talk to someone who has and get his or her feedback on the experience.
Search the Walden Library for examples of effective and poor implementation of EHRs.

By Day 3

Post an overview of at least three challenges in the implementation of electronic health records and provide an example of each challenge. Develop strategies for addressing each challenge based on what has been demonstrated to be successful. Cite your resources.

Read a selection of your colleagues’ responses.

Respond to at least two of your colleagues on two different days using one or more of the following approaches:

Ask a probing question, substantiated with additional background information, evidence or research.
Share an insight from having read your colleagues’ postings, synthesizing the information to provide new perspectives.
Offer and support an alternative perspective using readings from the classroom or from your own research in the Walden Library.
Validate an idea with your own experience and additional research.
Make a suggestion based on additional evidence drawn from readings or after synthesizing multiple postings.
Expand on your colleagues’ postings by providing additional insights or contrasting perspectives based on readings and evidence.

NURS 5051/6051 Week 5 Assignment: Application: Adoption of New Technology Systems

As a nurse, you can have a great impact on the success or failure of the adoption of EHRs. It is important for nurses to understand their role as change agents and the ways they can influence others when addressing the challenges of changing to a drastically different way of doing things.

Everett Rogers, a pioneer in the field of the diffusion of innovations, identified five qualities that determine individual attitudes towards adopting new technology (2003). He theorized that individuals are concerned with:

Relative advantage: The individual adopting the new innovation must see how it will be an improvement over the old way of doing things.
Compatibility with existing values and practices: The adopter must understand how the new innovation aligns with current practices.
Simplicity: The adopter must believe he or she can easily master the new technology; the more difficult learning the new system appears, the greater the resistance that will occur.
Trialability: The adopter should have the opportunity to “play around’ with the new technology and explore its capabilities.
Observable results: The adopter must have evidence that the proposed innovation has been successful in other situations.

Note: You are not required to purchase Rogers’ book or pursue further information regarding his list of five qualities. The information provided here is sufficient to complete this Assignment. The full reference for Rogers’ work is provided below the due date on this page.

For this Assignment, you assume the role of a nurse facilitator in a small hospital in upstate New York. You have been part of a team preparing for the implementation of a new electronic health records system. Decisions as to the program that will be used have been finalized, and you are now tasked with preparing the nurses for the new system. There has been an undercurrent of resistance expressed by nurses, and you must respond to their concerns. You have a meeting scheduled with the nurses 1 week prior to the training on the new EHR system. Consider how you can use the five qualities outlined by Rogers (2003) to assist in preparing the nurses for the upcoming implementation.

To prepare

Review the Learning Resources this week about successful implementations of EHRs.
Consider how you would present the new EHR system to the nurses to win their approval.
Reflect on the five qualities outlined by Rogers. How would addressing each of those areas improve the likelihood of success?

By Day 7 of Week 6

Write a 3- to 5-page paper which includes the following:

Using Rogers’ (2003) theory as a foundation, outline how you would approach the meeting with the nurses. Be specific as to the types of information or activities you could provide to address each area and include how you would respond to resistance.
Analyze the role of nurses as change agents in facilitating the adoption of new technology.

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