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Exploration of Regulations and Implications for Practice Essay
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Exploration of Regulations and Implications for Practice
Modern medicine has made use of revolutionary technology advancements to transform medical intervention from simply managing diseases towards scientific wellness. At the heart of this change is health care informatics, a field that makes use of big data, predictive analytics, and artificial intelligence to drive health breakthroughs for personalized individual and population health. To be more precise, the contrast between the periods pre-informatics and post-informatics is striking as health care has become more proactive and focused on the individual patient even as the complexities of human beings are explored (Hoffman, 2017). Through the use of health informatics, medicine has acquired the potential to create a world free from diseases with the capacity of informatics to process information being leveraged in computer-aided diagnostics to identify and track the risks far earlier, and design new treatments for specific debilitating diseases. From battling epidemics to breakthroughs in combating diseases, health informatics is the common denominator among countless initiatives with the promise the improving wellbeing and health. Like other health care initiatives, informatics projects similarly involve personal health information thereby making them subject to the same regulations and principles that govern the use of health information (McGonigle&Mastrian, 2018). The present paper explores the concept of safety in informatics projects with a focus on relevant regulations and their implications for the project.Exploration of Regulations and Implications for Practice Essay
General overview of the project
The identified informatics project is targeted at identifying and developing improvement strategies and tools to be used by medical facilities in promoting the safe use of health information technology (IT), as well as diagnosing, monitoring and mitigating health IT-related safety risks. Health informatics was specifically involved in evaluating the survey and participatory results collected from the hospitals and ambulatory practices. The project acknowledges that health care has increasingly been digitized with the adoption of health information technology. However, the digitization introduces health IT-related safety risks and harms. Health IT is intended to make health care safer, but health IT is not necessarily safe as technology is inherently fallible with possibility of software and hardware malfunctions. The article notes that medical facilities must be aware of health IT-related safety risks and engage in process improvements with a focus on identifying and mitigating the risks. The article concludes that organizations must develop and adopt guides to help them optimize the safe use of health IT (Schneider et al., 2014).Exploration of Regulations and Implications for Practice Essay
Safety issue involved
The safety issue involved is the concerns about health IT safety. Health IT is increasingly being adopted to improve health care safety. However, there is a real concern health IT are not absolutely safe. These technologies are fallible from software and hardware malfunctions. In addition, there is a possibility of data being corrupted or lost during transmission. Besides that, they can be intentionally or unintentionally hacked and the information acquired by an unauthorized third party (Schneider et al., 2014).
Stakeholders involved in this practice
The informatics project has identified hospital and ambulatory practices, medical personnel, policy makers, and technology developers as stakeholders. Hospital and ambulatory practices are identified as stakeholders since they adopt health IT with the intention of improving efficiency of service delivery and care safety by ensuring that information management presents the right data as and when required. Medical personnel are considered stakeholders because they make use of the technologies when providing professional care services. Policy makers are considered stakeholders since they determine the policies, principles and regulations governing the use of these stakeholders with a focus on ensuring population safety. Technology developers are considered stakeholders since they determine the architecture of the technology and strive to incorporate the concerns of other stakeholders in the technology design and functionality. In addition, patients are considered as stakeholders because the safety concerns of the technologies have a direct effect on their care outcomes, health and wellness (Lau &Kuziemsky, 2016; Schneider et al., 2014).Exploration of Regulations and Implications for Practice Essay
Intended goals of the initiative
The informatics project intended to address six goals. The first goal was to explore the challenges that medical organizations face as they seek to identify and mitigate health IT safety risks in their facilities. The second goal was to test technology diagnostic approaches applied in identifying health IT safety risks. The third goal was to develop and conduct activities targeted at identifying and reducing health IT safety risks. The fourth goal was to evaluate the project results. The fifth goal was to evaluate the management and governance approaches that organizations apply to manage health care practices. The final goal was to identify the barriers and facilitators to health IT risk identification and mitigation in health care practices (Schneider et al., 2014).Exploration of Regulations and Implications for Practice Essay
Actual outcomes of the initiative
Six outcomes were presented in the project. Firstly, there is limited awareness about the safety risks associated with health IT. Secondly, the traditional ‘silo’ approach applied in information management has a negative impact on health IT risk, quality and safety management as the approach impedes the ability to recognize and respond to safety issues. Thirdly, the technical nature of health IT creates a need for external consultation with experts to address health IT concerns. Fourthly, there is a need for health IT risk, quality and safety management expertise in medical organizations and facilities. Fifthly, there is a need for tools and metrics to enable medical organizations to detect, mitigate and monitor health IT safety risks. Finally, there is a need for stronger incentives to technology developers and providers to reduce health IT safety risks (Schneider et al., 2014).
Analyze the initiative
Safe Practice
The project determined that there are five opportunities for ensuring safer practice when using health IT. Firstly, there is a need for greater awareness about health IT safety. This would be achieved by integrating and aligning the health IT safety agenda into the broader safety agenda and engaging stakeholders to identify and mitigate the risks associated with health IT. Secondly, fostering collaboration among disciplines and departments so that each one contributes distinct knowledge to efforts targeted at detecting, analyzing and mitigating health IT safety risks. This would include disseminating best practices, training on core health IT safety terminology and methods, and availing expert consultants. Thirdly, strengthening external facilitation and consultation if the medical facilitate lacks sufficient in-house expertise to effectively detect and mitigate health IT safety through applying a mix of retrospective and proactive methods to analyze safety events and prevent their occurrence. Fourthly, developing and refining effective and usable metrics and tools that help to continuously improve health IT safety. Finally, perceiving health IT safety as a shared responsibility with every stakeholder having the responsibility of optimizing the safety and safe use of health IT (Schneider et al., 2014).Exploration of Regulations and Implications for Practice Essay
Ethical considerations
Although the project does not present a discussion on the ethical considerations, they are intimated. Health IT are relatively new introductions into the health care environment, and they present new ethical challenges. Holding the promise of non-maleficence and beneficence, health IT is intended to improve health care safety. However, aspects of these technologies creates conflicts with the principles of non-maleficence and beneficence. Firstly, the principle of non-maleficence requires of medical personnel and facilities not to intentionally cause harm to the patient, either through acts of omission or commission. This principle would consider it negligent if the use of health IT imposes an unreasonable or careless risk of harm upon the patients. In addition, this principle affirms the need for medical competence by acknowledging that safety concerns may present, but there is a need for fundamental commitment to protect patients from harm. This implies taking affirmative steps to identify and mitigate the health IT-related safety risks (Harman & Cornelius, 2017).Exploration of Regulations and Implications for Practice Essay