Healthcare reforms and legislations have an effect on the health information systems being used in healthcare. Healthcare reforms such as those related to HIPAA affect the nature of systems and improvements needed to achieve the desired safety outcomes in patient care. The hospital continually improves its systems to ensure that it abides with the HIPAA provisions (Lee et al., 2020). It has established a technical team involved in the regular assessment of system to ensure its optimum efficiency. It also develops policies guiding health information systems use in the organization that are revised on a regular basis to ensure it remains up-to-date with the changes in the legal aspects of care (Bhate et al., 2020). An example of a response by the hospital to needs of the meaningful use is enabling patients have access to their data via the telehealth systems. Therefore, the hospital has been responsive to changes in the health care reforms and legislations.
The suggestion that I would make regarding changed needed to support healthcare reforms and legislations is ensuring capacity development among healthcare providers. Healthcare providers play a critical role in implementing actions that align with reforms and legislations affecting telehealth use. As a result, it is critical for the hospital to ensure that healthcare providers are competent enough to facilitate successful transitions in health information systems in response to legislation and health care reforms. Interventions such as the provision of training opportunities for them are recommended (Monaghesh & Hajizadeh, 2020). The other suggestion is the need for the adoption of highly interoperable systems. Having highly interoperable systems will minimize the disruption of the organizational activities in cases of a shift in processes as a response to new legislation and healthcare reforms.
Telehealth system being used in the hospital utilizes technology innovations. One of the ways in which it utilizes technology innovations is that it not only substitutes hospital visits but also diagnosing and guiding the treatment of health problems too. Healthcare providers can use the system for telehealth consultation, patient assessment, planning, monitoring, and evaluation of treatments. The system also extends to enhancing the long-term management of chronic illnesses that need highly personalized and well-coordinated care (Döğer et al., 2019). The other way in which telehealth utilizes innovation can be seen from its continuous improvements in use in healthcare. Initially, telehealth was developed to provide basic care interventions such as assessment, education, and increasing patient engagement. Significant transformations have been seen in the modern world, with a focus being on the possibility of utilizing telehealth to enable patients to self-diagnose as well as access the different options of healthcare (Gajarawala & Pelkowski, 2021). Through it, patients with chronic illnesses will have an expanded access to personalized, high quality and efficient care services.
The other way in which telehealth utilizes innovation is the facilitation of patient screening and engagement prior to entering a hospital or care facility. Accordingly, telehealth enables the online assessment and engagement of patients. The online engagements enable healthcare providers to determine the need for hospital visits and hospitalizations for patients. Through it, health organizations plan for their resource needs on time, eliminating disruption of their services. An example of this impact can be seen with the experience of the US hospitals with covid19 pandemic (Monaghesh & Hajizadeh, 2020). Accordingly, technology innovations of telehealth enabled hospitals to screen and engage patients before their hospital visits, thereby, minimizing patient and provider exposure to unnecessary risks as well as the optimum utilization of the available, limited resources.
The hospital has achieved considerable milestones in implementing the use of telehealth in the provision of care to patients with chronic illnesses. However, it is still required to consider a number of additional technology innovations. One of them is the adoption of barcode medication administration. Barcode medication administration is a healthcare technology used in medication administration processes. The technology has demonstrated effectiveness in reducing and preventing medication errors. Since the hospital is dedicated towards promoting safety and efficiency in patient care, the adoption of barcode medication administration should be part of its priorities (Zheng et al., 2021). The existing evidence shows that barcode med
Struggling with online classes or exams? Get expert help to ace your coursework, assignments, and tests stress-free!