NURS 6421 Week 4 Gap Analysis Part 2 Essay Assignment

Think about the last time you bought a new car. You probably researched online and read about a number of different cars. You asked friends for advice and then reviewed performance ratings, style, and special features you hoped to add. You probably even had an idea of a fair price before you ever went to a car dealership. Advanced planning helps ensure you are satisfied with the final results and are not faced with unexpected, poorly researched decisions made at the last minute.

Before you undertake any large-scale project or endeavor, it is a good idea to first gather outside information from a variety of sources, including colleagues, peers, experts, reference books, journal articles, and so on. Doing so not only provides you with a broader understanding of the issues at hand and the scope of the project but also can help you revise and refine your project and what you hope to accomplish. In gap analyses, workflow redesigns, and informatics implementations, nurse informaticists can gain valuable insights from the perceptions of others, both in and outside of their practice settings.

This week, you continue to develop and refine the workflow issue you plan to use for your Course Project. You share your workflow issue with your colleagues in this course to gain their perspectives on meaningful use objectives and how well the issue meets the requirements for the Course Project. This week, the Instructor also reviews your workflow issue and provides feedback on how it can be revised or refined.

Learning Objectives

Students will:

Analyze a specific workflow issue in a health care organization
Analyze the connection between workflow issues and meaningful use objectives

NURS 6421 Week 4 Discussion: Workflow Issues

Have you ever carefully edited a paper you have written and then, when it is proofread by someone else, he or she finds a glaring typo? Sometimes we get so close to a project that we may fail to notice important details. The complexity of health care processes means that there can be a number of different gaps and varied areas of inefficiency in a single workflow. This is why it can be beneficial to get an outsider’s perspective on workflow issues you are investigating.

In this Discussion, you outline the workflow issue you plan to use for Part 1 of the Course Project in order for your colleagues to provide their perspectives and feedback. This Discussion serves as an opportunity for you to refine you workflow issue before submitting Part 1 of the Course Project in Week 5. It also builds on the Week 3 Discussion, which provided you with general information about meaningful use and its ties to common workflow issues in health care. You will apply that knowledge in this Discussion by critically analyzing your colleagues’ selected workflow issues, which will assist you in gaining a stronger grasp of the Course Project.

The Instructor in this course will also respond to your preliminary workflow issue and provide guidance for any necessary revisions or refinements you should make to better meet the requirements for the Course Project.

To prepare:

Reflect on the workflow issue that you are planning to use for Part 1 of your Course Project. Consider the inefficiencies and gaps based on your preliminary knowledge about the workflow.
Examine how the workflow issue relates to electronic health records (EHRs). How could the workflow issue be addressed through either the implementation or optimization of an EHR system?
Identify one or more specific meaningful use objectives that connect to your workflow issue. Refer to the Learning Resources in Week 3 for a review of the meaningful use objectives.
Review your initial thoughts on how you will conduct a gap analysis (your Gap Analysis Plan paper). What information will you need to obtain about the current-state workflow? How will you gather this information, and who will you consult in your organization?

With these thoughts in mind:

By Day 3

Post a description of the workflow issue you plan to use for your Course Project. Describe where the inefficiencies lie based on your current knowledge about the workflow, and identify the meaningful use objective(s) related to the workflow issue. Provide a brief overview of your plans for conducting a gap analysis, including your data-collection methods and who you will contact in the organization.

Note: As you write your initial posting, keep in mind that you will revisit this workflow issue throughout the Course Project, so you are not expected to have a perfectly structured and finalized workflow issue. It is understandable that your workflow issue may evolve throughout later weeks of this course as you gain new knowledge and gather more information about the workflow. This is the reality of the systems development life cycle (SDLC)—it is an iterative process in which later steps often help to inform and clarify earlier efforts in the process. Consider your workflow issue a living, developing element that has the potential for later growth and change.

Read a selection of your colleagues’ responses.

By Day 6

Respond to at least two of your colleagues on two different days. Analyze the workflow issue your colleague selected and identify areas that are unclear or will need to be investigated as your colleague conducts the gap analysis. Analyze the workflow issue’s connection to meaningful use and whether or not it meets the requirements for the Course Project.

Note: You must obtain Instructor approval for your workflow issue and data-collection methods after completing this Discussion.

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