Evaluation of Health Care Technology-Nursing Essay Samples

Evaluation of Health Care Technology

Digital technology has had widespread effects in the healthcare environment attributed to significant improvements in networking and computers. Digital technologies have transformed healthcare delivery and how providers perform their tasks. Electronic health records (EHR) is a digital technology that replaced paper medical records to ease the collection, storage, retrieval, and utilization of health data (Evaluation of Health Care Technology).

Currently, healthcare providers use the EHR system to engage patients and develop treatment plans is standard practice. This paper discusses EHR and the database management system utilized to gather data, its data elements, measurement and evaluation of the data element, data validation, elements of evaluating the user interface, user-technology interface assessment, and technology utilization in clinical practice (Evaluation of Health Care Technology).

Technology and the Database Management System Used to Collect Health Data

Relational databases remain commonly used in the healthcare sector. Different hospitals can select varying database management systems for their electronic health records. Consequently, database used with the most common being Microsoft MySQL. However, for the selected technology, electronic health record (EHR), Oracle Database remain used to manage medical data.

Oracle database defines a relational database management system developed by the Oracle Corporation. It provides a comprehensive and secure platform to help manage electronic health records and other vital medical data associated with the EHR (Clark, 2022). The database facilitates patient information, clinical data, and financial records storage and management (Evaluation of Health Care Technology).

Data Elements

The data elements entails primary and secondary because they can be entered into the EHR database. Primary data sources include data gathered directly from patients through direct interviews, observations, and surveys. On the other hand, secondary data remain obtained from books, journals, research studies, articles, and medical records. Primary data elements EHR can accommodate include patient name, age, gender, race, and physician’s findings, including physical examination, medical history, vital signs, lab tests, and other related medical information (Sarwar et al., 2022) (Evaluation of Health Care Technology).

The EHR can also accommodate secondary data elements, including previous test outcomes, imaging results, medical information gathered by other healthcare practitioners, and administrative data. Furthermore, the data must be measured and evaluated for accuracy, completeness, consistency and timeliness. In addition, validity, and uniqueness because accurate data remain a requirement to inform clinical decisions (Evaluation of Health Care Technology).

Data Validation

Data validation involves assessing data for completeness and correctness to ensure the clinical database performs its functions per the regulations and guidelines. Furthermore, It entails a sequence of documented tests of the data aiming to ensure data quality and integrity. Consequently, The data will be validated by checking the eight attributes of good clinical data. In this case, the validation will determine whether the data is attributable, legible, contemporaneous, original, accurate, enduring, complete, and consistent (Ofni Systems, 2019) (Evaluation of Health Care Technology).

The data source must be known and recorded. Additionally, the data should be human-readable and recorded when generated. Data sources should also be original, and copies and transformations of the data should be traceable back to the initial data. Enduring data is available when required, and it should be non-contradictory (Evaluation of Health Care Technology).

User-Interface Elements

User interface design supports the functionality of a system. Designers adopt user interface elements to ensure human-computer interaction is seamless. Consequently, Usability tests evaluate these elements for completeness, efficiency, and user satisfaction. The three elements that remain applicable to assess the user interface entails input controls, including checkboxes, dropdown lists, toggles, buttons, text fields, list fields, and radio buttons; navigation components, such as slider, search field, slider, tags, icons, and search field, and informational components, including a progress bar, message boxes, notifications, tooltips, medal windows, and icons (Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, 2020). Moreover, Users can rate these elements’ usability to determine the user interface’s efficiency for the selected technology.

Assessment Using Elements of User-Technology Interface

Electronic health records remain well-rated regarding their functionality, system relevance, user support in clinical decisions, and security of data stored. However, multiple elements can be improved to make it effective and satisfying for users to encourage adoption in the clinical environment. Furthermore, The usability issues in EHRs remain related to basic design and interface problems concerning how information stays displayed. Moreover, information support problems concerning how access to the information is provided (Rizvi et al., 2019) (Evaluation of Health Care Technology).

The user-interface design issues include clinical notes entry, information retrieval, and seeking tasks, specifically copy-pasting, error messages, edit ability, transcription auto-population, and screen options. It is necessary to improve user-interface elements, especially input controls, navigation, and information components, to increase the efficiency of accessing patient medical records, including medication and allergy lists, entering and sending medication orders and treatment instructions, and receiving drug alerts (Evaluation of Health Care Technology).

Recommendation for Improving the User Interface

The basic design and interface problems should be addressed to improve information display and provisions for information access and enhance the usability of the EHR. The designers need to improve the incorporation of a user-centered design approach during graphical user interface development (Kostetska, 2022). Improving input controls, navigation, and information components would mean improving navigation and searchability to make navigation for notes easier, enhancing usability features regarding clinical notes usage for better clinical notes entry, error prevention alerts, error control, and user control and freedom (Rizvi et al., 2019).

Also, the error control should include a spell check. Users should have more control and freedom to edit and format entries. Additionally, the user interface should incorporate workflow accelerators like more screen options, auto-population, copy-pasting, and dictation and transcription. Improving these elements ensures a more efficient and user-satisfying EHR user interface (Evaluation of Health Care Technology).

How the Technology You Selected Can Be Applied in Your DNP DPI Project, Future Work Area, and Clinical Practice as a DNP-Prepared Nurse

Electronic health records would provide data for the DNP DPI project, including patient demographic data, progress notes, medication and allergy alerts, medical procedures, laboratory results, utilization events, and vital signs. Analyzing this data would help identify patterns to inform project development and help answer the research question. EHR would support clinical decision-making because it has embedded clinical decision support (CDS) tools to improve care quality (Namulanda et al., 2019).

It offers information and recommendations to support evidence-based practice for effective, efficient, quality, and safe patient care. It also includes evidence-based guidelines that can be incorporated into nursing leadership, one of the core competencies of DNP-prepared nurses. In this case, DNP-prepared nurse leaders can use EHR to optimize workflow and skills required to maximize healthcare resources, including technology (Evaluation of Health Care Technology).

Conclusion

Healthcare technology has revolutionized the healthcare environment, making it more data-driven. EHR is one of the systems supporting healthcare delivery and positive patient outcomes. Many hospitals and healthcare systems select Oracle database management systems to support electronic health records. Data evaluation and validation are necessary to ensure EHR systems maintain high-quality and accurate data to support clinical decisions. Despite the value of EHRs, improving their user interface would encourage more adoption by potential users (Evaluation of Health Care Technology).

References

Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs. (2020, October 9). User interface elements. Usability.gov. https://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/user-interface-elements.html

Clark, L. (2022, June 10). Oracle plans a US database for electronic health records. The Register: Enterprise Technology News and Analysis. https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/10/oracle_us_health_database/

Kostetska, L. (2022, October 14). EMR interfaces: 14 principles of user-friendly EMR system interface. Binariks: Outsourcing Custom Software Development company. https://binariks.com/emr-interface-design-techniques/

Namulanda, G., Qualters, J., Vaidyanathan, A., Roberts, E., Richardson, M., Fraser, A., McVeigh, K. H., & Patterson, S. (2019). Electronic health record case studies to advance environmental public health tracking. Journal of biomedical informatics, 79, 98–104. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbi.2018.02.012

Ofni Systems. (2019, July 31). Clinical data validation. https://www.ofnisystems.com/clinical-data-validation/

Rizvi, R. F., Marquard, J. L., Hultman, G. M., Adam, T. J., Harder, K. A., & Melton, G. B. (2019). Usability Evaluation of Electronic Health Record System around Clinical Notes Usage-An Ethnographic Study. Applied clinical informatics, 8(4), 1095–1105. https://doi.org/10.4338/ACI-2019-04-RA-0067

Sarwar, T., Seifollahi, S., Chan, J., Zhang, X., Aksakalli, V., Hudson, I., Verspoor, K., & Cavedon, L. (2022). The secondary use of electronic health records for data mining: Data characteristics and challenges. ACM Computing Surveys, 55(2), 1-40. https://doi.org/10.1145/3490234