Week 5 Discussion
Yelaine Garcia
RN Information Systems in Healthcare
With the increase of COVID-19, telehealth has become the new normal for doctors’ appointments. Telemedicine is still a semi-new term to healthcare, patients especially (McGonicle, 2018). Their electronic health record is now available for patients to see if they download the application to their phones, tablets, or computers. Telehealth is beneficial in the sense that the patients can see and speak with a healthcare professional. The downfall of it is the quality of the visit. Depending on what device the patient is using, not all devices have the same camera quality or picture quality. What may be bumpy or dry to a patient may not appear bumpy or dry to the health care professional on the other end. Everyday use of applications on smartphones, tablets, and computers has become part of our daily norms. The apps that allow patients to see their health records can help in clarifying what a health care professional said by having the ability to read their records on their phone.
The application my hospital uses for patients to look at their health records is Common Spirit Health (Common Spirit Health, 2019). I feel that with the increasing availability of patient information, nurses will be more attentive to their patients. The app that my hospital uses shows the health staff’s full first name, middle initial, and last name initial of the workers that are part of their healthcare team during their hospital stay. I recently had a patient that when I walked in before I could introduce myself, he showed me his phone screen and asked if it was me. His record showed that Samantha J R RN was his nurse. He wasn’t a troublesome patient by any means, but it did give me some bit of urgency to know his results, medication due times, what doctors had said that day, etc. The use of the app with the health care team’s names helps the hospitals by providing names for the patient to report when their survey is called to them to see how their care was during their hospital stay.
I believe the advancement in technology and access to health records for patients will improve patient care and have reachable outcomes. In time the efficiency of the applications and telehealth, I think that health care will eventually become all electronic rather than going to clinics (Grams, 2020).
References
“CommonSpirit Health Launches as New Health System.” Catholic Health Initiatives, 1 Jan. 2019, www.catholichealthinitiatives.org/en/media/news/advancing-health-care-together1.html.
Elizabeth Grams -, et al. Virtual Care and Intelligent Automation Tools Help CommonSpirit Health’s Caregivers at 1,000+ Care Sites Triage Patients and Reduce Transmission of COVID-19. 3 Apr. 2020, commonspirit.org/virtual-care-and-intelligent-automation-tools-help-commonspirit-healths-caregivers-at-1000-care-sites-triage-patients-and-reduce-transmission-of-covid-19/.
McGonigle, Dee, and Kathleen Garver Mastrian. Nursing Informatics and the Foundation of Knowledge. 4th ed., Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2018.