Nursing, Introduction to Informatics and Progress toward a Community of Health and Wellness

Module 1: Introduction to Informatics and Progress toward a Community of Health and Wellness

Goals:

• Discuss, with supporting evidence, both the positive and the negative aspects of the addition of computer and information processing to healthcare.
• Explain the transformation of healthcare during the period of the advancement of science and the computing.
• Compelling explain the complexities, issues, and difficulties the industry faces as it tries to provide high quality healthcare at affordable prices.

Overview

The introduction of computers into our world has been chaotic, stressful, and full of ups and downs. Like most disruptive technologies, the dramatic improvements many have seen have come at a cost that is not clear to us all. Nowhere is this truer than the impact of computing on healthcare. The purpose of this class is to survey the trends and their impacts, and to better understand and figure out how to deal with the changes in the business of healthcare and the impact it will have on everyone (including healthcare workers, administrators, support personnel, patients, families and friends of patients, other healthcare providers, suppliers, insurance companies, governmental agencies, the police, first responders, etc.)

This course is designed to serve those in the healthcare domain and those wishing to learn more about, and possibly serve, the domain. The course will require the careful study of the textbook, additional web research, and discussions with classmates, work mates, friends, and family to build a broader and more realistic view of what has been happening to healthcare and where it is likely to go.

Read: Improving Efficiency through Technology, Analytics, and Management: Chapters 1-3

 

 

ASSIGNMENT

Your assignment this week has two parts:

1. Produce answers to a set of essay questions. After doing the reading for this module we expect you to spend roughly 8 hours doing detailed research, writing, editing, and polishing your submission. Do not just answer the questions. Demonstrate your understanding of the material by digging deeper, getting to the heart of the matter and make clear you fully appreciate the why and how as well as the what. Some questions may intrigue you and prompt you to research and write more.  Others may seem obvious to you and a short concise answer seems to be best. One size seldom fits all, especially in medicine.

Remember to submit your Essay Assignment to the dropbox following the file naming convention FirstInitial.LastName_M01.docx. For example, J.Smith_M01.docx. Remember that it is not necessary to manually type in the file extension; it will automatically append.

2. Begin work on your class project, described below. You are expected to spend roughly two hours each of the first seven weeks on the project. This first week, you are expected to submit a status report explained below. Class project deliverables are submitted to the same dropbox as the essay assignment, but the submission may not be a “.docx” type file. For this first week you are expected to submit your status report using PowerPoint, which uses a “.pptx” file type.

Start by reading and following these instructions:

1. Quickly skim the questions or assignment below and the assignment rubric to help you focus.
2. Read the required chapter(s) of the textbook and any additional recommended resources.  Some answers may require you to do additional research on the Internet or in other reference sources. Choose your sources carefully.
3. Consider the course discussions so far and any insights gained from it.
4. Create your Essay Assignment submission and be sure to cite your sources if needed, use APA style as required, and check your spelling.
5. After you have finished your essay assignment, start working on your class project and produce and submit your status report.

Essay Assignment: 

Answer all of the following questions using headers to separate topics.

1. As one learns about all of the wonders of modern technologies, how would you respond (positive or negative, and why) to Dr. Victoria Sweet who wrote: In trying to get control of healthcare costs by emphasizing “efficiency,” we’ve headed down a wrong path. Medicine works best—that is, arrives at the right diagnosis and the right treatment for the least cost—when the doctor has enough time to do a good job, and pays attention not only to the patient but to what’s around the patient.  Sweet calls this approach Slow Medicine, and she believes that, put into wider practice, it would be not only more satisfying for patient and doctor, but also less expensive.
2. Consider the involvement of insurance companies, the big business of healthcare, and cost-cutting activities. Explain what you believe is meant by a cardiac patient who, upon meeting his surgeon for the first time prior to surgery, says to the surgeon, “Hello, sir. I’m Mr. John Smith, husband of Mary Smith and father of Jeanette Smith. I’m a carpenter who has built close to 80 new homes over the last 20 years with these two hands. I’m not the heart attack in Room 403.” and why.
3. It’s been said that true quality improvement is only possible when those involved in the process can be completely honest with one another. In the case of healthcare, when mistakes cause serious pain, suffering, and possibly death, how is true quality improvement possible? When leveraging 6 Sigma, is total honesty really necessary? Explain.
4. Everyone agrees that reading the Electronic Healthcare Records is much easier than the hand-written entries of old, but many complain that too many are focusing too much on the computer screen instead of on the human right in front of them. Is this just lack of skill or training? Is it poor computer system design? Is it just the nature of the transition from the old way to the new? Is patient care suffering because computers and all the displays, alerts, and alarms distract us?