Using Technology to Promote Patient Safety and Quality Outcomes

Using Technology to Promote Patient Safety and Quality Outcomes

Communication is one of the most important and significant parts of the healthcare sector. As a result, numerous, various ideas and inventions have evolved in the field of medicine to facilitate communication between patients and healthcare practitioners in order to ensure the quality of services provided. These developments are intended to improve the quality of healthcare services offered to patients and to improve patient outcomes. Healthcare organizations are beginning to embrace new communication technology. The two new communication technologies listed below are primarily intended to improve patient health care.

Telemedicine Technology

Telehealth is a sort of communication technology in which healthcare providers communicate with patients through the provision of remote clinical services. It primarily focuses on delivering curative care to patients through communicating with those who live in remote areas or are unable to travel to the clinic. Telehealth is accessed by a mobile device or computer, as well as a two-way camera, which allows the provider to have a face-to-face meeting with the patient from a distance (MTS, 2022).

Telehealth is very beneficial in the care of the elderly. It is critical for older persons to have regular checkups in order to avoid cardiac arrest, strokes, and other medical crises. The usage of telehealth reduces the danger of exposure to other diseases (MTS, 2022).

The COVID-19 epidemic heightened the importance of healthcare practitioners implementing telehealth technologies. Virtual health technologies, on the other hand, have been in use since the 1950s, when NASA used two-way interactive video to monitor astronauts’ vital signs. The Norfolk State Hospital and the Nebraska Psychiatric Institute in Omaha were able to communicate using this technique. Nonetheless, nearly six decades later, in 2020, 80% of physicians in the United States were not using virtual health in their patient interactions. Six months later, however, 95% of physicians had begun to use telehealth services (assests.ey.com, n.d.).

Therapeutics in the Digital Age

Digital therapeutics is the delivery of healthcare services to the general public via an application on a patient’s smartphone or a personal computer. The application reports information about the patient’s health to the physician. Digital treatments, like pharmaceuticals, are given and subjected to testing and randomized clinical studies. Type 1 and type 2 diabetes, substance misuse, asthma, cancer, anxiety, ADHD, and insomnia have all been shown to benefit from digital treatments (MTS, 2022).

A pacemaker is an example of an implanted digital treatment. Pacemakers now have Bluetooth capabilities that may be linked to an app on a patient’s smartphone, making remote monitoring easy for the physician and improving the patient’s result. Wearable devices are one type of digital therapeutic. Patients with diabetes, for example, may be eligible for a wearable continuous glucose monitor (CGM). The CGM does away with the necessity for daily finger sticks. The CGM is worn on the body and allows the patient to monitor their blood sugar in real-time and see how meals and activity affect their blood glucose levels. Other current wearable gadgets can monitor patients’ blood pressure, heart rate, and blood oxygenation. The use of digital therapeutics enables remote monitoring of the patient and helps the physician to address issues sooner rather than having to wait for the patient to come into the clinic (MTS, 2022).

Conclusion

Medical technology implementation necessitates everyone on the healthcare team to cooperate. Smart technologies will be used to improve healthcare in the future. These technologies will enable healthcare practitioners to offer the appropriate care to the appropriate people at the appropriate time. Smarter healthcare will result in more informed, cost-effective care.

References

Pulse of the industry: Medical Technology Report 2020. (n.d.). Retrieved February 9, 2022, from https://assets.ey.com/content/dam/ey-sites/ey-com/en_gl/topics/life-sciences/life-sciences- pdfs/ey-pulse-2020-report.pdf

The Ten Hottest Medical Technologies – what to know. MTS. (2022, February 8). Retrieved February 9, 2022, from https://www.medicaltechnologyschools.com/medical-lab- technician/top-new-health-technologies

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Purpose of Assignment:
According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (2008), “Apply safeguards and decision-making support tools embedded in patient care technologies and information systems to support a safe practice environment for both patients and healthcare workers.”

American Association of College of Nursing. (2008). The Essentials of Baccalaureate Education for Professional Nursing Practice. Retrieved from: https://www.aacnnursing.org/Education-Resources/AACN-Essentials

Course Competency:
Differentiate the impact of various communication technologies on safety and quality improvement.

Content:
Scenario
You are a staff nurse at Healing Spaces Hospital. Through your dedication and passion for healthcare technologies, you have been voted as the nursing delegate to sit on the Emerging Innovations Steering Committee. In preparing for your first committee meeting, you have read through the meeting minutes from last year and determined what the past nursing delegate had achieved and what future goals were set for this specific role. The meeting minutes from last month show that the steering committee is currently looking at emerging communication technologies and how the hospital can leverage cost-effective technological advances. In preparation for the first meeting, you created a list of best practices based on your scholarly research and action plans for leveraging these into practice.

Instructions
You have just walked into your first steering committee meeting and quickly see this committee is ready to move forward with leveraging technology specific to communication. As the nursing delegate, you have been tasked with creating a comparative analysis of two communication technologies and how they can be used to improve communication between healthcare teams as well as how they can influence patient outcomes. Before the next monthly committee meeting, they want you to send them a comparative analysis using a format of your choice (i.e., table) of two communication technologies that you feel best to improve safety and quality healthcare. Write a comparative analysis including the following:

• • Discuss the two selected communication technologies you have chosen with support from scholarly research.
  • Describe the function of each technology
  • Analyze how it is used in the healthcare setting
  • Examine how the two selected technologies can be used to improve communication among the healthcare team.
  • Provide a specific practice example from the literature to support how each technology has been shown to improve communication among the healthcare team.
  • Discuss how each communication technology has been shown to improve patient outcomes.
  • Identify evidence from the literature to support how each technology has been shown to impact patient outcomes.
  • Format:
  • Standard American English (correct grammar, punctuation, etc.)
  • Logical, original, and insightful
  • Professional organization, style, and mechanics in APA format
  • Submit the document through Grammarly to correct errors before submission
  • Resources
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  • For assistance on professional communications, please visit the Rasmussen College Answers page.
  • For assistance on the Ethical Model of Decision Making, please visit the Rasmussen College Answers page.
  • For additional research assistance, please visit the How can I make a Research Appointment with a Rasmussen College Librarian?
  • For additional APA assistance, please visit the Rasmussen APA Guide.