Nurs 4050 Protected Health Information (Security, Privacy, and Confidentiality)

Nurs 4050 Protected Health Information (Security, Privacy, and Confidentiality)

Protected Health Information (Security, Privacy, and Confidentiality)

The nurse informaticist and interdisciplinary team use multiple strategies to manage patients’ protected health information. According to Basil et al. (2022), nurse informaticists guide other professionals in implementing the necessary administrative, physical, and technical safeguards and controls to secure private and confidential data on health records. The other strategy is training programs on data security systems, procedures, and breaches. Andersson et al. (2022) found the training effective in improving nurses’ competence and enabling them to comply with ethical standards for using protected health information. Compliance helps to prevent security, privacy, and confidentiality breaches.

Workflow

Health care technology streamlines workflow. Through technology, nurses improve efficiency, and their workload is reduced. These improvements reduce frustration and time spent dealing with administrative burdens, allowing nurses to spend more time on patient care.

Costs and Return on Investment

The nurse informaticist focusing on adverse events prevention requires a salary, an office, and other supplies as the primary costs. However, spending on them is justified since it will help to improve documentation and reduce the overall costs of adverse events. Data shows that the reported cost of medical errors is approximately $21 billion annually in the United States (Rasool et al., 2020). Preventing them will help to reduce such spending and lower the number of health complications.

Opportunities and Challenges

The addition of a nurse informaticist role will be a massive opportunity for nurses and the interdisciplinary team to improve patient care by reducing adverse events, improving communication, and streamlining processes. Other opportunities include enabling virtual care and continuous collaboration in implementing tech-driven quality improvement initiatives and innovation (ANA Nursing Resources Hub, 2023). The facility will also be a center of proactive care interventions. Challenges associated with the nurse informatics role revolve around increased technology adoption in patient care. Such challenges include the potential of data theft/loss and ethical breaches, a problem closely associated with advances in communication and information technology in nursing (Seh et al., 2020). Purchasing and maintaining health care technologies to support nursing informatics and innovation is also expensive.

Preventing adverse drug events and promoting positive patient care experience requires the interdisciplinary team to collaborate to improve patient care through technology. Such collaboration can be achieved through data exchange and team-based analysis to make shared decisions. The interdisciplinary team can also collaborate in evaluating issues hampering patient care and how they can be addressed through technology. A suitable example is medical error prevention through barcode medication administration. The team can further collaborate in educating patients on safe technology use, particularly data sharing with electronic health records, wearables, and patient portals.

Summary of Recommendations

Health care organizations should continually seek opportunities for improving patient outcomes. As demonstrated in this proposal, the nurse informaticist responsible for preventing adverse drug events and leading other initiatives will be pivotal in promoting a data-driven approach to patient care. This approach will ensure that patient data is readily available in this organization and can be quickly shared and analyzed to inform critical health decisions. The other takeaway supported by research is that nursing informatics can lead to better clinical experience for care providers and patients (Al Najjar et al., 2022; Peltonen et al., 2023). Its integration into patient care improves efficiency, reduces workload, and enables nurses to spend more time on patients. Above all, nursing informatics fosters interprofessional collaboration by enabling teams to share data and coordinate patient care (Golay et al., 2022). Teams can collaborate to implement joint initiatives on data security, training programs, and virtual care.

Conclusion

As leaders in this organization, you are responsible for leading change and supporting innovation. This proposal has justified creating the position of a nurse informaticist to ensure high-quality care, optimal patient safety, and better experiences for nurses and patients. A data-driven and tech-centered approach to patient care will further enhance efficiency and reduce costs. As a result, the creation of this position should be prioritized and treate