Quality Improvement
Meaningful use refers to the application of electronic health records (EHR) for the enhancement of the quality of services, by improving safety, competence among the inter-professional teams, and ensuring that health disparities are eliminated. Meaningful use also involves the need for the practitioners to involve the patient and family in decision-making, improving the efficiency of the team members, and ensuring that the wellness of the patient is improved. Additionally, meaningful use refers to the need for health care professionals to ensure that patients’ information is secured (Jones, Rudin, Perry, & Shekelle, 2014).
Questions asked by the team members are always important because the members are charged with handling the system, and they might need clarifications on how to go about it. In this case, one of the main concerns is the Staff’s acceptance of the new system. It is apparent that resistance to change is one of the factors that jeopardize success in the application of EHRs; hence, the management must look into ways to lure the staff into accepting the changes. Questions asked by the team members are also instrumental in the determination of the types of training and development programs to be provided to the staff. For instance, in this case, the employees might require training in handling the system to retrieve information.
Meaningful use affects the task handling process by introducing protocols to be used when accessing the EHR system (Jones et al., 2014). The tasks must be aligned with the requirement of the guidelines to ensure that only the relevant personnel perform specific tasks for accountability purposes in handling patients’ information. Some of the workers will have to retrieve information from the system through their superiors for security purposes.
Informatics
One of the effects of informatics in health care is the development of platforms for professionals to learn from the experiences of other experts in the same field of practice. Informatics facilitates the collection and storage of information for future reference by other employees in an organization, and this fosters the development of an evidence-based approach to caregiving (Aziz, 2017). Informatics in the system is a positive contribution toward influencing effective learning as various professionals go through data and information provided by other professionals in the past.
I have seen some biomedical equipment being used by technicians in hospitals. The equipment includes anesthesia machines, centrifuge, blood chemistry analyzers, and ventilators, among many others. It is quite interesting to watch the professionals handling the biomedical equipment with ease and confidence, and it is quite a challenge for me to enhance my skills and knowledge to attain that level of expertise as I pursue my career. It is even more intriguing to imaging the level of competence required when using the equipment to collect data and information that will be used for diagnosis and treatment.
The use of biomedical equipment such as the anesthesia machine has enhanced safety in care delivery by ensuring that an accurate amount of medical gases are delivered to the patient. Technology has led to the development of a safer care delivery process by assigning risky tasks to computerized machines that can effectively administer medication and provide monitoring devices to alert doctors and nurses when something goes wrong. Technicians handling the machines are also quite instrumental in ensuring that the safety of the patient is enhanced throughout the caregiving process.
References
Aziz, H. A. (2017). A review of the role of public health informatics in healthcare. Journal of Taibah University Medical Sciences, 12(1), 78-81.
Jones, S. S., Rudin, R. S., Perry, T., & Shekelle, P. G. (2014). Health information technology: An updated systematic review with a focus on meaningful use. Annals of Internal Medicine, 160(1), 48-54.