Technology across the Care Continuum

Question Description
Write 3–4 pages describing the effective use of patient-care technologies, communication systems, and information systems across the care continuum of a health care system of your choice. Add a one-page executive summary your organization could use to disseminate these ideas. Because a lack of knowledge when using technology can lead to errors in patient care, effective use of technology in health care is paramount to providing a safe health care delivery environment. Show Less By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and assessment criteria:
Competency 3: Explain the use of information management tools and technologies to monitor and improve health care delivery and patient outcomes.
Describe effective use of technology across the care continuum in a health care setting.
Describe how to manage change and technology to improve positive outcomes.
Support description of effective patient care with current nursing and informatics theoretical ideas.
Competency 4: Communicate in a manner that is consistent with expectations of a nursing professional.
Write coherently to support a central idea in appropriate format with correct grammar, usage, and mechanics.
Competency Map
Check Your ProgressUse this online tool to track your performance and progress through your course.
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Questions to Consider
To deepen your understanding, you are encouraged to consider the questions below and discuss them with a fellow learner, a work associate, an interested friend, or a member of the business community.
How might standardized nursing language (SNL), interprofessional communication, information system support, staff and patient education, organizational culture, and state and national regulations influence technology use?
What are the complexities in using technology across a continuum of care?
What are the opportunities?
What are the barriers?
How can we manage change and technology use to develop improved patient outcomes?
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Resources
SUGGESTED RESOURCES
The following optional resources are provided to support you in completing the assessment or to provide a helpful context. For additional resources, refer to the Research Resources and Supplemental Resources in the left navigation menu of your courseroom.
Capella Resources
APA Paper Template.
APA Paper Tutorial.
Library Resources
The following e-books or articles from the Capella University Library are linked directly in this course:
Cashin, A., & Cook, R. (Eds.). (2010). Evidence-based practice in nursing informatics: Concepts and applications. Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
Berner, E. S. (Ed.). (2014). Informatics education in healthcare: Lessons learned. London, UK: Springer.
Gerrish, K., & Lacey, A. (2013). Research process in nursing (6th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
McNally Forsyth, D., Wright, T. L., Scherb, C. A., & Gaspar, P. M. (2010). Disseminating evidence-based practice projects: Poster design and evaluation. Clinical Scholars Review, 3(1), 14–21.
Furst, C. M., Finto, D., Malouf-Todaro, N., Moore, C., Orr, D., Santos, J., . . . Hart Tipton, P. (2013). Changing times: Enhancing clinical practice through evolving technology. Medsurg Nursing, 22(2), 131–134.
Gonen, A., Sharon, D., Lev-Ari, L., Strauss, E., & Segev, R. (2015). The impact of nursing students’ cultural diversity on the intention and attitudes toward the use of information technology. Journal of Transcultural Nursing, 1–9.
Harper, E. M. (2012). Staffing based on evidence: Can health information technology make it possible? Nursing Economics, 30(5), 262–267, 281.
Nagel, D. A., & Penner, J. L. (2015). Conceptualizing telehealth in nursing practice: Advancing a conceptual model to fill a virtual gap. Journal of Holistic Nursing, 1–14.
Sharoff, L. (2015). Holistic nursing in the genetic/genomic era. Journal of Holistic Nursing, 1–8.
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Course Library Guide
A Capella University library guide has been created specifically for your use in this course. You are encouraged to refer to the resources in the BSN-FP4004 – Nursing Research and Informatics Library Guide to help direct your research.
Internet Resources
Access the following resources by clicking the links provided. Please note that URLs change frequently. Permissions for the following links have been either granted or deemed appropriate for educational use at the time of course publication.
Institute for Healthcare Improvement. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.ihi.org/Pages/default.aspx
James, G. (2015, February 12). How to write a compelling executive summary. Inc. Retrieved from http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/how-to-write-a-c…Technology across the Care Continuum
The TIGER Initiative. (n.d.). Informatics competencies for every practicing nurse: Recommendations from the TIGER Collaborative. Retrieved from http://www.thetigerinitiative.org/docs/TigerReport…
National League for Nursing. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.nln.org/
California HealthCare Foundation. (2015). Nursing 2.0: Improving care through technology. Retrieved from http://www.chcf.org/publications/2015/06/nursing-t…
Bookstore Resources
The resources listed below are relevant to the topics and assessments in this course and are not required. Unless noted otherwise, these materials are available for purchase from the Capella University Bookstore. When searching the bookstore, be sure to look for the Course ID with the specific –FP (FlexPath) course designation.
Grove, S. K., Gray, J. R., & Burns, N. (2015). Understanding nursing research: Building an evidence-based practice (6th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier.
Assessment Instructions
In the role of a nurse leader, describe the effective use of patient-care technologies across the care continuum in a chosen health care system.
PREPARATION
Choose any type of health care system, for example, acute, ambulatory, or home health or telehealth.
DIRECTIONS
Submit the following for this assessment:
Technology Across the Care Continuum
Include the following in your 3–4-page description:
A brief overview of the care continuum in your selected health care system.
Describe the types of patient-care technologies and how they are used across the care continuum in your system. Be sure to include communication and information systems.
Identify strengths and weaknesses in the systems and describe how to manage change and technology to improve patient outcomes.
Support your description of effective patient care with current nursing and informatics theoretical ideas.
Executive Summary
Based on the description above, add a 1-page executive summary that captures the following points:
Current state of technology across the care continuum in your system.
Proposed improvements.
Risks of making or not making changes or improvements.
Recommended next steps.
ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS
Written communication: Ensure written communication is free of errors that detract from the overall message.
APA formatting: Format resources and citations according to current APA style and formatting guidelines.
Number of resources: Cite a minimum of four peer-reviewed resources.
Length: Submit 4–5 typed, double-spaced pages.
Font and font size: Use Times New Roman, 12 point.

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.Technology across the Care Continuum

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS

Discussion Questions (DQ)

Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation

Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
APA Format and Writing Quality

Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes

I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy

For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy

The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication

Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.