NUR 3472-Deliverable 3-Leveraging Quality and Safety Measures with Communication Technologies
Communication technologies can improve communication between healthcare teams and influence patient outcomes daily to enhance safety and quality in the healthcare setting. Two communication technologies that can be used in healthcare are mHealth and Interpreter iPad services. M-Health is an application readily available on mobile devices that collects health data from the community and clinical setting, delivers healthcare information between healthcare professionals and patients, and allows for real-time monitoring of a patient’s vital signs. M-Health also will enable patients to become regular players in their healthcare progress by allowing them to manage their personal information, view their lab values, ask questions regarding their health, and obtain education regarding their diagnosis and upcoming procedures (Schuster, L., Tossan, V., & Drennan, J. 2017). Interpreter iPad services can be utilized via phone, tablet, or computer through video, mobile application, or texts. This is a service that closes the gap between healthcare workers and their corporations that need immediate access to language communication services by allowing healthcare workers to connect with someone who can communicate between them and the patient 24/7 in hundreds of different languages (Jacobs, E. A., Shepard, D. S., Suaya, J. A., & Stone, E. L.2004).
| mHealth: What it does | How it can be used in healthcare | How does it improve communication among healthcare teams |
| Information on- hand and readily available | The patient or healthcare provider can pull the patient’s chart anywhere in the facility/hospital. Updated medication use, scheduled appointments, recent vital signs, and more are available for reference and help in planning and maintaining patient care (Kumar, S., Nilsen, W., Pavel, M., & Srivastava, M. 2013). | The healthcare worker can pull up the patients’ recent vitals, monitor them through their mobile device, update and change medications, and communicate with other healthcare providers regarding discrepancies or changes to the patient’s care related to the updates provided.
Scenario: Patient updates that their cardiologist has prescribed new anticoagulant medication for the risk of clots. The primary care physician looks at the latest update from the patient and notes that the patient is already on a high-dose anticoagulant. The primary care physician calls the patient’s cardiologist and works together with them regarding what is safest for the patient (Donna Malvey & Donna J. Slovensky. 2014). |
| Health information exchange | The ability for patients to view their lab values or their recent vital signs, as well as the physicians, | The mHealth system can be used throughout communication between the physician and nursing staff in the hospital setting by allowing up-to-date data. |
| . | Continues a chain of communication between the patient and the health care provider. This allows the patient to update the physician of any changes to their health status and the physician to create a medical diagnosis based on updated symptoms and vitals (Kumar, S., Nilsen, W., Pavel, M., & Srivastava, M. 2013). | Patient symptoms and vitals allow the physician to create new diagnoses or schedule appointments and the nurse to make an updated care plan and follow-up regarding the scheduled visits.
Scenario: Patient calls with a new onset of heart palpitations, fatigue, weakness, and shortness of breath, and vital signs are updated, showing elevated heart rate and respiration rate. The information is available for the physician to see, and he suspects the patient may have a pulmonary embolism. He tells the patient to call 911 immediately and starts sending paperwork from mHealth data capture and notes from the call to the hospital informing them of suspected pulmonary embolism, creating a quicker and safer service of care for the patient (Donna .Malvey, & Donna J. Slovensky. 2014). |
| Continuity of care | Sharing data information with the physicians, nurses,
and healthcare specialists |
Instead of having multiple physicians taking care of the same problem,
all can view the information |
| Help the patient feel secure in their healthcare team and continue their care with communication and education going further (Donna Malvey & Donna J. Slovensky. 2014). | Physicians are involved in the patient’s care. These can also increase communication between physicians and specialists listed as caregivers under the patient profile.
This leads to a constant continuation of care between all the providers and the patient. Scenario: The patient updates their profile, stating they have a newly discovered allergy to sulfa. The primary care physician notices the patient’s new allergy updates and reviews the medications listed as active. The physician sees the patient taking Bactrim for a respiratory infection prescribed by a quick care clinic. The physician quickly calls and educates the patient to stop taking the medication. The physician calls the immediate care clinic, requests a new antibiotic be prescribed for the patient, and explains the situation quickly due to the services of mHealth. This brings comfort to the patient, and the quick and safe promotion of care allows them to feel confident with their continuity of care. It enables the physician to continue moving forward with the care plan for the patient (Donna Malvey & Donna J.Slovensky. 2014). |
| Interpretive iPad Services: What it
does/Function |
How it can be used in healthcare | How it improves communication among healthcare teams |
| Providing a language that fits the patient | When healthcare professionals need to communicate with their patients with a language barrier, the iPads available can be utilized to have an interpreter within minutes. Many health care providers/services do not provide adequate or interpretive services, thus leaving patients confused
and uncertain in their care (Jacobs, E. A., Shepard, D.S., Suaya, J. A., & Stone, E. L. 2004). |
Interpreters are not available at all times when we need them. Unfortunately, not all healthcare corporations are equipped with adequate interpretive services or cannot provide any (Jacobs, E. A., Shepard, D. S., Suaya, J. A., & Stone, E.
L. 2004). This service would allow us to utilize the technology available to communicate with the patient and team members, knowing they are getting the correct information, decreasing communication barriers that lead to inadequate team communication due to Lack of understanding. Scenario: The patient speaks a rare form of Mien and cannot communicate with the physician. The interpreter iPad allows the physician or patient to type in the language and find an interpreter within minutes. The quicker the physician can adequately communicate with the patient, the more effectively the physician can communicate with other team members about the patient’s needs and care plan. The readily available interpreter and speediness of care will allow those patients with limited English speaking capabilities to continue to be satisfied with their care (Jacobs, E. A., Leos, G. S., Rathouz, P. J., & Fu, P., Jr. 2011). |
| Increase communication with the patient. | After finding the proper language interpreter on the iPad, the healthcare worker can ask questions needed for admission, evaluation, past medical history,
Medication reconciliation, pre-procedure, all the way through discharge. Patients with language communication barriers must be adequately able to communicate with their healthcare providers (Jacobs, E. A., Shepard, D. S., Suaya, J. A., & Stone, E. L. 2004). |
As a team, we are not scrambling to figure out what the patient is trying to convey or why they are visiting us that day. We can have someone communicate and tell us precisely what the patient wants us to know.
Scenario: The patient in the ER is crying profusely but cannot speak English and explain why she is crying. The team suspects that she is crying because she is in pain. However, she has a fear of hospitals. Interpreter iPad Services allows us to communicate with and understand the patient instead of guessing why she is crying. Patients are likelier to feel calm, relaxed, and happier when heard and understood (Jacobs, E. A., Leos, G. S., Rathouz, P. J., & Fu, P., J. R. 2011). This communication can then be transferred to others who will provide care to the patient in the hospital. Hence, they know how to approach the patient and work with her fear of hospitals versus scaring her more and creating unnecessary circumstances that could be avoided. |
| Continuity of care | By allowing the healthcare team to understand the
the patient fully through the use |
Healthcare offices, hospitals, etc., are all busy places, and patients are constantly
being moved from rooms, having labs |
| Interpreter iPad: we give the patient comfort with our care/services and allow us to continue to care for them through our healthcare team. The use of this interpretive service can create the difference between happy and satisfied patients who receive the necessary care to keep them healthy versus unhappy patients who did not receive the proper care and are readmitted due to complications that could have been avoided (Jacobs,
E. A., Leos, G. S., Rathouz, P. J., & Fu, P., Jr. 2011). |
They are drawn, undergoing procedures or surgeries, and have many other staff enter their room. With this portable iPad interpretive service available, we can explain to the patient what is happening at all times without confusing or scaring them, keeping them fully involved in their health.
Scenario: The doctor brings the interpretive services iPad into the patient’s room. He is confident the patient will fully understand the procedure, risks, and benefits scheduled for this day. The doctor encourages the patient to ask questions about the interpreter iPad’s process, which closes the communication gap (Jacobs, E. A., Leos, G. S., Rathouz, P. J., & Fu, P., Jr. 2011). |
NUR 3472-Deliverable 3-Leveraging Quality and Safety Measures with Communication Technologies
Using mHealth services has improved patient outcomes by increasing the time patients spend being involved in their health. The communication services from patients to healthcare providers, and from one healthcare provider to another, grow with the use of mHealth as the patient can update their information, view their labs and upcoming or past procedures, and educate themselves on their disease processes and procedures. The ability for the patient to utilize access to their medication record and update as needed, and allowing healthcare providers to view their changes increase the provider’s ability to modify and update the patient’s plan of care, continuously keeping an up-to-date record on the patient, and decreasing the risk of gaps in their medical history. This keeps the patients’ information relevant for use when seeing new specialists or hospital visits and allows the patient to keep tabs on upcoming scheduled appointments and medication reminders and adhere to the prescribed plan of care, decreasing the risk of advancement in their disease process, or adverse outcomes by not adhering to the prescribed care (Donna Malvey, & Donna J. Slovensky. 2014).
Interpreter iPad Services has improved patient outcomes by decreasing the communication gap between patients who cannot correctly speak English and their physicians. The ability to accurately increase communication without having to wait for a person to be available in the healthcare setting or finding a facility that may have an interpreter for the patients’ language decreases the amount of time the patient spends waiting for care, increases the accuracy of information from the patient, increases the understanding of explained education or procedures to the patient and increases the quality of care. By having patients and their families be able to communicate with healthcare providers immediately regardless of their language through the quick service of Interpreter iPad Services, comfort and confidence in their care and those providing it will increase, and the probability of avoidable medical errors or adverse care effects decreases as well leading to the best, and safest quality of care (Jacobs, E. A., Shepard, D. S., Suaya, J. A., & Stone, E. L. 2004).
References
Donna Malvey, & Donna J. Slovensky. (2014). MHealth: Transforming Healthcare. Springer.
Jacobs, E. A., Leos, G. S., Rathouz, P. J., & Fu, P., Jr. (2011). At a relatively low cost, shared networks of interpreter services can help providers serve patients with limited English skills. Health Affairs, 30(10), 1930-8. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/900995727?accountid=40836
Jacobs, E. A., Shepard, D. S., Suaya, J. A., & Stone, E. L. (2004). Overcoming language barriers in health care: costs and benefits of interpreter services. American journal of public health, 94(5), 866–869. doi:10.2105/ajph.94.5.866
Kumar, S., Nilsen, W., Pavel, M., & Srivastava, M. (2013). Mobile Health: Revolutionizing Healthcare Through Transdisciplinary Research. Computer, 46(1), 28–35. https://doi.org/10.1109/MC.2012.392
Schuster, L., Tossan, V., & Drennan, J. (2017). Consumer Acceptance of mHealth Services: A Comparison of Behavioral Intention Models. Services Marketing Quarterly, 38(2), 115. https://doi.org/10.1080/15332969.2017.1289791
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Question 
NUR 3472-Deliverable 3-Leveraging Quality and Safety Measures with Communication Technologies
Differentiate the impact of various communication technologies on safety and quality improvement.
Scenario
You are a staff nurse 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 last year of meeting minutes and determined what the past nursing delegate had achieved and future goals for this specific role. The meeting minutes from last month show the steering committee is currently looking at emerging communication technologies and how the hospital can leverage the integration of cost-effective healthcare technology. In preparation for the first meeting, you have created a list of best practices based on your scholarly research and developed action plans for leveraging these into practice. You have been tasked with creating a comparative analysis of two communication technologies and how they can improve communication between healthcare teams and 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.
Instructions
Write a comparative analysis table 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 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 type of communication technology has been shown to improve patient outcomes underneath the table.
Identify evidence from the literature to support how each technology has been shown to impact patient outcomes. Resources