Technology in Healthcare

Technology in Healthcare

Technology affects the health sector. These effects are determined by how appropriate it is used. Many advances in the health sector have taken place courtesy of technology, for example, telecommunication and remote monitoring. In one way or another, it also helps to maintain patient’s privacy and security of health information. However, there are risk factors associated with it. The essay below talks about technology use in the healthcare section. It talks about its Impact on the patient’s privacy, the advantages, and disadvantages. It goes ahead to describe the regulatory bodies. Our assignment writing help is at affordable prices to students of all academic levels and academic disciplines.

Impacts of Technology on Healthcare

Technology is one of the rapidly growing fields in America. It is currently used in the healthcare sector to manage information on patient’s health electronically. Patient privacy is very important during healthcare practice. It is a component that all professions should practice. To ensure a patient’s data and information is kept private, there is a privacy rule put in place called HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. These HIPAA rules give guidance to medical personnel, including nurses, on the proper use of the health information that is protected (Moore & Fryer., 2019). It also gives guidance on how to use this information and how to ensure high security. The regulations of HIPAA include determining and dictating what can be done in case the rules given are breached.

When technology is used correctly, it positively impacts the healthcare sector. Since many nurses are using their telephones, mobile phones, and electronic mail for communication, technology needs to adhere to HIPAA standards. Technology has enabled the collaboration of medical professionals in the management and discussion of patient’s conditions. Technology allows data encryption to protect health information. By doing so, the patient’s privacy is being upheld. Technology also protects patient’s knowledge since the technological systems allow every medical user to communicate with each other using a unique user identifier (Reychav et al., 2019). This helps to track any gaps in the system that an enemy can use to tap the patient’s information. Data privacy and HIPAA compliance are maintained by preventing unauthorized data access through automatic log-offs.

However, the present technology is not accurately HIPAA compliant. It maintains HIPAA standards by monitoring users who are authorized to access data. It ensures the users implement policies that include securing messages and conducting regular risk assessments. Through technology, data encryption has protected the privacy of the patient. In case HIPAA compliance is breached, the data contained is unreadable to unauthorized users, making it useless to them.

There are regulatory bodies that ensure that medical practitioners preserve the patient’s rights at large. An example of this regulatory body is the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH ACT). It acts as an enforcement tool for the Health Insurance and Privacy Accountability Act. It ensures people adopt the use of the technology and use it appropriately. The HITECH Act audits medical personnel to ensure they comply with HIPAA security and privacy rules (Lin et al., 2019). Under these regulatory bodies, the patient has a right to be notified of any information given to unauthorized persons. There are guidelines on the appropriate use of technology to protect privacy. These include compliance with the HIPAA standards, which include administrative security, technical security, and physical security. These encompass administrative regulations such as transactions, unique identifiers, setting codes, and the rules of operation.

The chosen case scenario puts at risk the privacy of the patient. Furthermore, posting a photo of a patient before seeking consent violates HIPAA’s privacy rule. It is unethical and unprofessional in the nursing practice. It also tends to create mistrust between the nurse and the patient. The healthcare providers should reprimand such a case in front of other nurses to prevent re-occurrence. The charge nurse should take charge and report the issue to the head of the hospital institution, with the head of the health institution then reporting it to the nursing regulatory body. The head of the hospital institution should also ask the nurse who violated the ethical principles to take the necessary steps to remedy the bad reputation of the hospital to the public. With a bad reputation, the hospital is likely to lose its clients. I would recommend that the nurse’s license be revoked because they cannot adhere to the protocols laid down by their regulatory body. The posted photo of the wound change on social media is more likely to cause personality issues and depression to the patient. The regulatory body governing nurses should reprimand and dismiss the nurse from the job.

Appropriate use of technology helps in improving the patient’s quality of life during the delivery of nursing care to patients. Most importantly, it protects the privacy of the patient’s health information. This helps to create trust between the medical personnel in the hospital and the patient. It helps to prevent avoidable deaths through screen monitors. It helps in predicting epidemics upon analysis of the data or information collected. Technology has also helped in the development and manufacture of tools like nebulizers that can be used to deliver drugs such as mucolytics. Technology necessitates the development and manufacture of new medicines that can improve the efficiency of nursing care. It improves the efficiency of patient management through telehealth. Telehealth is advanced communication in the direction of patients among nurses. It helps them call for help from the physician on duty when the patient is critically ill. Remote monitoring of patients is possible. For example, pacemakers used by those with cardiac diseases can send information to the nearest health center, minimizing the number of deaths and severity of conditions (Gordon & Catalini., 2018). Appropriate use of technology also reduces healthcare costs of traveling to the hospital to receive medication. Instead, technology has made healthcare a phone call away. It has also fastened healthcare service delivery since data transfer from one nurse to another has been attached. The number of medication errors is also reduced with the help of technology. Systems that counter-check human errors during data entry help in this filtration process.

Risks associated with inappropriate use of technology include decreased efficiency of nursing care. Currently, social media and mobile phones are a source of psychological and mental illnesses. In case of any breach of the patient’s information, data may leak to social media. When a patient realizes that the confidentiality and privacy rule has been violated, they become stressed and depressed. Depression and stress minimize the efficiency of nursing care provided. Professional and ethical principles guiding the appropriate use of technology include confidentiality and privacy. These two help to maintain patient safety. Other ethical principles include training medical users on the use of these electronic systems and making sure the data provided is accurate.

Conclusion

Although technology in health can ensure patients’ privacy and improve the quality of life for the patients, other negative effects come with it. An example is depression and stress, which one is likely to develop from social media. Some principles, therefore, guide the appropriate use of technology, which include confidentiality and privacy. Any nursing care errors, such as infringement of privacy and medication errors, paint one as incompetent. Such errors should be labeled punishable by the nursing regulatory body.

 References

Gordon, W. J., & Catalini, C. (2018). Blockchain technology for healthcare: facilitating the transition to patient-driven interoperability. Computational and structural biotechnology journal, 16, 224-230. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csbj.2018.06.003

Lin, Y. K., Lin, M., & Chen, H. (2019). Do electronic health records affect the quality of care? Evidence from the HITECH Act. Information Systems Research, 30(1), 306-318. https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2018.0813

Moore, W., & Frye, S. (2019). Review of HIPAA, part 1: history, protected health information, and privacy and security rules. Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology, 47(4), 269-272. https://doi.org/10.2967/jnmt.119.227819

Reychav, I., Beeri, R., Balapour, A., Raban, D. R., Sabherwal, R., & Azuri, J. (2019). How reliable are self-assessments using mobile technology in healthcare? The effects of technology identity and self-efficacy. Computers in Human Behavior, 91, 52-61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2018.09.024

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The purpose of this assignment is to (a) explore and present an information technology used in the healthcare system that supports the patient care experience and (b) develop the skills of team communication, collaboration, and production.

1. History and Current Use
   • Describe significant findings that prompted the development of the
   • Discuss the history and current use of the technology in
   • Describe three goals of this technology’s
2. Impact on Healthcare and Nursing
   • Discuss the Impact on professional nursing practice related to:
     • Patient safety
     • Quality of care measures/monitoring
     • Risk management
     • Privacy, confidentiality, and security of patient data
     • Effect on population within the region
     • Ethical practice
     • Compliance with legal and regulatory mandates
     • Organizational infrastructure and operations
   • Support discussions with examples & data from current evidence-based
3. Three Advantages and Disadvantages
   • Patient’s perspective (e.g., patient outcomes, safety, patient/family satisfaction)
   • Nurse’s perspective (improves/hinders job efficiency/safety)
   • Healthcare organization’s perspective (regulatory compliance, financial)
4. Controversy, Issues, Challenges, and Regulatory Implications
   • How might issues surrounding the chosen technology be addressed/solved?
   • Provide statistically significant data or evidence to support your
5. Summary
   • Key points
   • Discoveries/surprises
   • Lessons learned by the team