Healthcare Informatics Systems Planning Paper

Abstract

Medication errors can result in adverse drug events, with negative impacts on patients including death. Computerized physician order entry (CPOE) and bar code medication administration (BCMA) systems are transforming the approach to prescription drugs in clinical settings and providing considerable information that is used in performance assessment and research. They have been responsible for rapidly decreasing medication errors and transcription errors and are a critical aspect of the patient safety strategy at many hospitals and other clinical facilities, greatly improving patient outcomes. Health information management systems such as automated medication administration have four defined phases. Healthcare Informatics Systems Planning Paper . By ensuring that the needs are appropriately assessed through consultation and analysis there is a more successful selection stage. Once the system is selected the preparations for implementation begin, from determining changes to the current network, hardware that is required, training in the use of the system including hardware and software, and other activities. Ideally this is followed by a trouble free maintenance period, where the system is function and administration and use of the system is ongoing. After a time the system may no longer meet current needs or be compliant with standards. The cycle then begins again.Healthcare Informatics Systems Planning Paper

Medication errors can result in adverse drug events, with negative impacts on patients including death (Truitt, Thompson, Blazey-Martin, NiSai, & Salem, 2016).. Computerized physician order entry (CPOE) and bar code medication administration (BCMA) systems are transforming the approach to prescription drugs in clinical settings and providing considerable information that is used in performance assessment and research. They have been responsible for rapidly decreasing medication errors and transcription errors and are a critical aspect of the patient safety strategy at many hospitals and other clinical facilities, greatly improving patient outcomes (Truitt et al., 2015). Both CPOE and BCMA relate to the reduction of errors relating to patient medications, the first through direct transmission of prescriptions from the physician to the system which provides information management to pharmacy service, and the second by tracking and support processes and decision making while administrating medications. CPOE is a greater challenge as it more expensive and more time consuming to implement ($34,000 per bed in comparison to $3,000 per bed for BCMA (Botta & Cutler, 2014). Ideally the systems work together and also coordinate with other systems such as the electronic medical records of the patient.Healthcare Informatics Systems Planning Paper

Four phases of the HIT lifecycle
The four phases of the HIT systems life cycle are needs assessment, selection, implementation, and maintenance. When a hospital or clinical environment determines that they want to use a BCMA and CPOE systems they must understand their specific expectations of such a system. If systems are already in place, then the needs might include the functions currently served and further functionality which is required. New systems are sometimes needed as systems age because the system might no longer meet security requirements are be compatible with other health information systems in the clinical environment.Healthcare Informatics Systems Planning Paper

Assessing needs
A needs assessment with regard to BCMA will differ depending on whether there is already a BCMA in use or whether the system is being launched for the first time. In the initial launch of BCMA there will be considerable training needs as first time users become proficient in using the system. The training needs cannot be determined until other aspects and expectations of an automated system for medication dispensing and tracking are defined. This is needed in order to fulfill the next phase of selection. One strategy for determining needs is to consult with stakeholders. This would include prescribing physicians, nurses, pharmacists, administrators and other groups. Each group plays a different role in the system of dispensing medication, and therefore has different needs that the new automated process must support. By ensuring that the needs of each group are understood, they can be better met which reduced concerns and problems in the implementation and maintenance phases. There are also linkages to other information systems to be considered, such as data flows between the patient’s record in the Electronic Health Records (EHR) system and well as billing and claims databases. Information is moving both between systems from the CPOE to the BCMA, that information must be linked to the general data about a patient and their condition, and this must be tied to yet other systems which track items such as drugs in order to create the invoices to bill insurance companies.Healthcare Informatics Systems Planning Paper