Health Informatics and Positive Outcomes (Essay Sample)

Health Informatics and Positive Outcomes
Health Care Quality and Safety Management
Executive Summary
August, 2020
Health Informatics and Positive Outcomes
Hospitals and other healthcare facilities should seek to have positive outcomes across the board. However, the staff should focus on some measures that are more significant than others. The paper enumerates some of the primary measures and outcomes and ties them directly to a facility’s strategic wellbeing. For example, a decrease in human errors has a direct and positive impact on a facility’s financial situation and brand value. Both of these are strategic. The paper also delves into privacy, efficiency, and other pertinent measures. A facility that pays attention to these measures will save money and earn enough income and goodwill to grow into the future.
One of the most critical outcome measures in this field is the number of medical errors recorded in any given period. The health sector is still learning about the human body and what ails it. Therefore, errors are expected to happen. However, unlike in other professions, professionals in this field deal with real-life matters to prevent death (Ammenwerth & Rigby, 2016). This means that the drive to keep errors at a minimum is one aimed at saving actual lives. Healthcare professionals and facilities should always feel good when they see a reduction in their error rate.
For the healthcare facility, there is a need to consider focusing on the reduction of death cases experienced due to medical errors. The facility's present performance outlines 35 percent of death incidences occur in the facility due to preventable medical errors. According to Rodziewicz and Hipskind (2020), medical errors have thrived for years as the leading cause of death in various regions, such as the U.S.A. In some instances, defining the cause of medical errors and outlining a logical solution to flatten the curve of recurrent cases is complex (Rodziewicz & Hipskind, 2020). To bring down the percentage of death that the facility experiences from 35 percent to almost zero percent due to medical errors, it is crucial to consider maintaining a distinctive organizational culture that operates towards the recognition of safety challenges. Rodziewicz and Hipskind (2020) point out that for healthcare facilities to experience a safety culture based on system advancement, they should consider flattening medical error cases. The number of hospitalizations in the facility seems to be high, an issue associated with medical errors.
As per the sourced data from the facility, close to 29 percent of prolonged hospitalizations have a close linkage to high medical error incidences. In a case focusing on medical error implications in a hospital by Rodziewicz and Hipskind (2020), medical errors globally account for more than $4 billion annually, with the same costing around $20 billion annually. Every year, close to 100,000 individuals pass away due to scenarios associated with medical errors in hospitals and clinics (Rodziewicz & Hipskind, 2020). For the facility to remedy this issue, it is essential to consider proper and periodic training of the nursing staff and other professionals working in the facility on current medical advancements and technologies applicable in handling hospitalized patients. Further, while attending to hospitalized patients in the facility, it is vital to ensure healthcare professionals experience distraction from and digital devices when attending to a patient. Other instances, including wrong specimen labeling and incomplete pertinent imaging information, are aspects rectifiable through the installation of proper and up-to-date informatics systems. Even though these moves by the facility will be effective in bringing down the number of falls and hospitalizations associated with medical errors, it might take quite a time to remedy the issue and align the workforce on a common focus.
Strategic Value of Specific Outcome Measures
This outcome is strategically vital for three reasons. One, the reduction of errors also results in a decrease in costs. The facility will save time and money, which would have been lost through avoidable corrective procedures, lost revenue, an increase in downtime, and an increase in insurance premiums. Secondly, a reduction in errors is always significant for morale (Ammenwerth & Rigby, 2016). The institution will be able to build a culture based on the decline and elimination of errors. Finally, facilities and professionals are brands of themselves, meaning their careers benefit in the long run if they avoid medical errors.
Systemic Problem and Specific Quality and Safety Outcomes
Additionally, all facilities and professionals should seek to keep patients as safe as possible. It is a sad reality of modern medicine that in the U.S.A. alone, almost 100,000 people die every year from infections they picked up at the hospital (Rodziewicz & Hipskind, 2020). The data also shows that thousands of patients fall in hospitals and other facilities every year, with several them getting serious injuries (Rodziewicz & Hipskind, 2020). These are all adverse outcomes for both the patient and the facility. Therefore, it is always a good thing when a facility can report positive figures regarding patient safety.
The strategic imperatives of investing in patient safety are rather obvious. For one, the hospital will not be exposed to the costs which come with dealing with falls. These include offering free treatment to the victim, an increase in the facility’s premiums, and a possible loss of money in court if the victim sues. A hospital and its staff also gain positive publicity, and its brands benefit from being associated with increased patient safety (Purcarea, 2019). Finally, in the end, every medic and medical facility aims to make its patients feel better. Investing in a safety program that works achieves that in the short and long term.
The strategic move to have almost every medical process automated is a good strategy based on reducing medical errors in the facility. However, in relation to this strategy, Ahmed, Saada, Jones, and Al-Hamid (2019) indicates that the reduction of medical errors in a hospital through the use of automation processes highly depends on addressing several hurdles. In relation to this argument, there are distinct hurdles that the facility can consider embracing before enforcing various strategies based on reducing medical errors. For instance, the facility can encourage anonymous reporting rooted in the eradication of likely fears among healthcare professionals that report medical errors can thrive as a source of blame for various departments. As time evolves, every healthcare provider will see the need to consider it necessary to report any incident related to medical errors. Such reports can be used in developing measures on how the same can be managed or handled to prevent further related incidences in the future. In case a medical error leads to the death or hospitalization of a patient, the patient's relatives or families like transparently being informed what transpired. Through proper reporting, it will be possible for healthcare providers to clearly define patients' health conditions to their keen transparently, hence creating trust with the facility services.
It is a good move in ensuring the facility does not experience additional expenditures in dealing with falls. Reduction of expenses and extra costs are associated with proactive management procedures focused on reducing medical errors in healthcare facilities (Ahmed et al., 2019). For the case of the facility, an active management system, for instance, will root cause examination can be an effective strategy in flattening and preventing likely medical errors. According to Ahmed et al. (2019), root cause examination has the summation of an analytical framework employed in defining any underlying risks that contribute to patients, healthcare professionals, and stakeholders committing avoidable errors. With the existence of proactive management in the hospital, it is crucial to reconsider a proper implementation of technology systems based on heightening patients' safety via computerized installations, which will help reduce errors associated with medication, prescription, and data sharing between various departments. With patients being aware of their safety and privacy of their electronic information in the facility, they will be sure that there will be no scenarios associated with common medical errors such as mislabeling, poor handwriting, and mislabeling of laboratory results, surgical procedures, and prescriptions.
Many patients are not aware of what to do if they encounter medical errors in their medication procedures. In some instances, some healthcare providers are either scared or negligent of reporting medical errors that happen while in line of duty. It is crucial to create a common ground between patients and healthcare providers in eliminating medical errors. Achieving such a move will create the right image of transparency and trustworthiness to the public. Ahmed et al. (2019) recommend that hospitals encourage their workforce to embrace the culture of reporting medical errors, make consultations with qualified and competent affiliates in case of uncertain procedures, and educate patients on the use and implications of distinct medication procedures. In the facility, it will be paramount to consider developing intense collaborations between patients, the workforce, and stakeholders in heightening quality and effective service delivery that free of medical errors.
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