NURS FPX6214 Assessment 1 Technology Needs Assessment
Context
Assessment 1 - Technology Needs Assessment
Student Name
FPX 6214
Capella University
Prof Name
Month Date, Year
Technology Needs Assessment
The role as a nursing leader in Vila Health Hospital has always been full of challenges. Over the years, the role as a DNP leading nurse in the healthcare organization has allowed the team to demonstrate nurses’ own decision-making skills to improve the quality and safety processes associated with the patients. The purchase of a health information technology has been a significant endeavor of the current management that has decided to upgrade the old traditional ways of working to new improved telehealth ways. In this report, the job is to provide a needs Assessment plan for the implementation of telehealth technology in our healthcare organization in the United States. This report will serve as a foundation for evaluating the overall value to an organization of the various technologies used in the hospital to improve safety and quality outcomes. The current analysis will focus on videoconferencing as a vital telehealth tool. The report will measure the relevance of the needs assessment and what are the major nursing issues which can be addressed using this particular telehealth tool.
Relevance and Importance of Needs Assessment
There are several stakeholders associated with the telehealth plan and benefits received from the new technology in Vila Health System such as nurses, doctors, pharmacists, investors, suppliers, and policymakers. In the next step after the needs assessment of telehealth, the meeting’s agenda will be formulated. The fact remains that telehealth can be supported by nurses to improve patient care significantly. This is the reason there is a vital need for this needs assessment that will allow professionals to take a systematic approach to develop knowledge about a new or upgraded telehealth technology that would impact nursing practice (Harris et al., 2021).
Moreover, through this needs assessment, the goal of nursing professionals and healthcare practitioners is to get a clear view of the objectives of telehealth and how it can be regulated and controlled to provide the best outcomes for the intended population of patients. This means that through this needs assessment, the professionals will be able to identify assessment work and any gaps that still exist and must be addressed. This needs assessment is vital related to telehealth technology that aims to enhance the quality of care in the hospital. For example, the need for new tablets and laptops is extremely crucial in the organization to enhance the level of the patient support to offer remote services.
Similarly, according to Nearing et al. (2020), needs assessment can serve as an incredibly powerful tool to help professional nurses and doctors to make vital decisions. For instance, we need to make decisions for treating hypertension patients and diabetes type 2 patients in emergency rooms and allocate the appropriate resources to reach healthcare quality goals. The programmatic goals cannot be achieved until we have comprehensive data regarding the needs of our organization to deploy the right technology. A telehealth needs assessment can be implemented across a range of settings including clinics, medical schools, and hospitals; it helps the professionals to take programmatic actions to improve breastfeeding rates in a hospital like Vila System.
Furthermore, in order to increase the readiness of nurses and other administrative managers to make effective use of telehealth technology, it is extremely crucial to do a needs assessment at the onset of the new and innovative technological project (Russell et al., 2022). Therefore, it will allow us to adequately assess the needs of various individuals who can harness the power of technology and serve the community better.
Key Issues in Nursing Care Affecting Patient Care Outcomes
Many individuals are still not aware of how telehealth can help the professionals and the patients at Vila System to address the pressing healthcare challenges. Telehealth requires making a few strategies and it is unquestionably a significantly useful tool to impact the health of patients and decision-making regarding choosing the best type of virtual treatments. Telehealth for example as stated by Sivaraman helps to address the question of why it is important to look at telehealth now versus later. For addressing current challenges, telehealth can become a driving force to address various key issues in nursing care to impact patient care outcomes (Sivaraman, 2020).
For instance, the first challenge is the reducing supply of physicians and nurses after COVID-19 in our organization. Through the implementation of telehealth, it will be possible to enable the limited supply of professionals to reach out to and counsel or treat a wider population of patients. Distances will not matter because technology has no bounds; this means that despite the increasing patient volume, patients can still have the facility to use our professional treatments and reduce frustration (Sivaraman, 2020).
Moreover, telehealth can also raise the demand for care for baby boomers and patients above 65. In the next few years, Medicare enrollees will be raising the demands of the hospital and this need to be addressed regarding the limited supply of specialists. The rising hospital costs and reimbursements are other challenges that can be solved using telehealth. However, some physicians also think conversely that telehealth is going to be a waste of money due to rising inflation and it will require a significant investment in hardware and software that must be balanced with the benefits vs cost.
Moreover, Video conferencing technology is also recommended to stakeholders to implement and it aims to provide them the best benefits using technology to help patients consult doctors whenever necessary. The setup of videoconferencing will be much help for doctors and nurses because it will allow psychotherapists to create stronger relationships with their patients and enhance their loyalty.
Moreover, the key issues in nursing care in the hospital include stress, burnout, anxiety, disloyalty, inadequate staffing, and patient handling. These key issues can be mitigated and thoroughly addressed using the proposed videoconferencing solution for professionals to reduce the inconvenience of patients and improve quality care outcomes. This means that by using remote psychotherapy and diagnosis sessions, nurses and doctors will feel less burnout and save time and energy. They will handle more patients in less time to reduce frustration.
Moreover, the cost of video conferencing equipment is not significantly high but the stakeholders have to plan a budget and stick to it. For example, the cost of videoconferencing can range from the low-level implementation of only $200 webcam equipment to more than $3,000; this can also include the DIY kits regarding off-the-shelf consumer hardware. The total cost that the hospital may need can be a maximum of $8000 to $10,000. This is the conflicting situation that may discourage some of the management professionals to oppose the incorporation of the new technology amidst the financially trying times.
Safety and Regulatory Conditions to Upgrade to Telehealth Solutions
Regarding the safety and regulatory concerns of telehealth, in 2012, Congress passed the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act (FDASI) that which also confirms the rules of the FCC and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) (Russell et al., 2022). This is a vital framework for devising the right strategy for using information technology in healthcare organizations such as tablets, mobile phones, and medical and nursing applications. These tools aim to enhance patient safety; moreover, in April 2014, the FDA, the FCC, and the ONC also created a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that the organization of firms associated with the implementation of telehealth can collaborate and can decide on the scope of telehealth to be used as an innovation to regulate its utilization(Dirnberger & Waisbren, 2020).
Moreover, the FSMB model policy regarding telehealth also suggests that hospitals must also use the similar care standard in both virtually remote and in-person consultations. Moreover, the American Medical Association (AMA) also provided a guideline regarding maintaining face-to-face relationships through telehealth usage to interconnect both patients and nurses.
Patient Confidentiality and Privacy Protection for Telehealth
Many people do not know that the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 known commonly as HIPAA has facilitated healthcare professionals to formulate a federal law and a standard guideline for safeguarding patients’ personal data (Nearing et al., 2020). The use of HIPAA in healthcare organizations ensures that the professionals follow rules and keep paper and digital medical histories of patients confidential and refrain from sharing them with third parties. This means that HIPAA allows for defining what nurses can share through telehealth visits. However, nurses must protect their wireless passwords and avoid using public Wi-Fi for using telehealth services. This means that nurses should avoid using telehealth devices with people outside the office such as family members and friends (Harris et al., 2021).
Potential Impact of Internal and External Stakeholders on Telehealth
Regarding telehealth, the perceptions of different professionals are different; Telehealth marketing includes different stakeholders’ decisions on its implementation and utilization. For example, in Vila Health Hospital, stakeholders connected to telehealth include nurses, physicians, and anyone outside the organization who is in other businesses with telehealth practice. The professionals can integrate telehealth into any population provided that they have enough resources and skills needed to operate the telehealth technology. The internal stakeholders are those who have a direct relationship with the business. However, in telehealth, there are external stakeholders who can be owners, managers, and leaders of this organization.
The suppliers, regulators, and shareholders are expected to use different technologies. The telehealth solutions provide them with computers, laptops, servers, and other portal digital devices (Dirnberger & Waisbren, 2020). The government has created laws to regulate telehealth in making many areas good; plenty of these regulations need our professionals and nurses to be licensed to administer medical care using such sophisticated tools therefore, regarding reimbursement procedures, a huge discrepancy in rules is related to it.
Since Videoconferencing is a crucial aspect of telehealth sessions conducted by professionals, the incorporation of this technology is regarded as an effective way to help patients improve their chances of health, telehealth systems invented related to video sessions need to be assessed and there is a need for using significant resources and training of professionals to ensure their success. Therefore, the telehealth technology recommended to stakeholders is videoconferencing tools is based on the assumption that it can work as an effective and cost-saving tool for improving quality of care outcomes.
Conclusion
The use of telehealth services in the Vila Health System can be a good solution to make life much easier for employees and patients. This is not like any other product; telehealth needs a proper needs assessment or a business plan to make it more successful and beneficial. The company can plan leadership strategies to focus on reducing the cost of telehealth implementation and can help the organization gain a competitive advantage.
References
Dirnberger, J., & Waisbren, S. (2020). Efficacy of telehealth visits for postoperative care at the Minneapolis VA. The American Journal of Surgery, 220(3), 721-724.
Harris, D. A., Archbald-Pannone, L., Kaur, J., Cattell-Gordon, D., Rheuban, K. S., Ombres, R. L., … & Mutter, J. B. (2021). Rapid telehealth-centered response to COVID-19 outbreaks in postacute and long-term care facilities. Telemedicine and e-Health, 27(1), 102-106.
Nearing, K. A., Lum, H. D., Dang, S., Powers, B., McLaren, J., Gately, M., … & Moo, L. (2020). National geriatric network rapidly addresses trainee telehealth needs in response to COVID‐19. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 68(9), 1907-1912.
Russell, M. R., Rogers, R. L., Rosenthal, S. M., & Lee, J. Y. (2022). Increasing access to care for transgender/gender diverse youth using telehealth: a quality improvement project. Telemedicine and e-Health, 28(6), 847-857.
Sivaraman, M., & Fahmie, T. A. (2020). A systematic review of cultural adaptations in the global application of ABA‐based telehealth services. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 53(4), 1838-1855.