Assignment Instructions:
Please consider the following scenario:
You have been assigned as one member of a 3-4-member nursing IT team at the local community hospital. The hospital is in a rural area with the closest Tier-1 hospital (trauma center) three hours away. In the past four years, there has been a noticeable increase in the incidence rate of young adults with asthma "attacks." The nursing unit managers have performed research on the issue and have determined that asthma patients readmitted within 30 days with asthma exacerbations occurred most noticeably during the winter months and on the weekends. Further investigation showed that additional potential factors to the asthma exacerbations appear to be brought on by the use of e-cigarette's and hookah smoking, and for patients with allergies.
The nursing managers have expressed a desire to incorporate Telehealth measures and phone applications as a means of educating the young adult populations on ways to control asthma outbreaks. The team has researched the literature and noted that Telehealth was introduced at other facilities with great success and helped to improve outcomes for patients with the signs and symptoms of asthma exacerbations. The nursing IT team will be required to create and present a PowerPoint presentation to nurse administration about the proposed plan.
This is a group project. The group is expected to create a voiced-over PowerPoint presentation on using Telehealth technology and/or phone applications to educate patients and improve on the incidence and/or readmission rates of patients presenting with asthma exacerbations through the emergency room. The presentation should be approximately15 minutes long. Please note: ONLY ONE person in the group is to submit the PowerPoint presentation for the group.
The group presentation needs to include thorough answers to the following questions:
1. A summary of the key issues.
2. Discuss the implications the technology would have on health promotion (both positive and negative).
How will the use of the technology address the key issues?
3. Identify the proposed telehealth technology. Research real solutions or propose a solution for technology that may not yet exist.
4. Describe a minimum of 5 key tasks needed to implement the proposed technology based on the system life-cycle.
5. What concerns might patients express about using the described technology? What policies might the IT team propose to address these concerns?
6. Discuss the usefulness of the proposed Tele health technology to increase patient education and to monitor for patient readmissions.
7. How would training for the proposed solution be conducted for patients and nursing staff?
8. What are potential issues with developing and sustaining a tele-health program?
9. Conclusion
Rationale for Group Work
The rationale of the group work provides us with an opportunity to navigate the challenges we face with technology. Think of this project as if you were and interdisciplinary team but you all work on different units at the same facility. There are barriers associated to working on different units. Health care providers are also creative critical thinkers. We often are able to see through the barriers to see to the solutions. This, in essence, is the foundation of this assignment. Working on a team without having to be in the same room to bring technology to a patient without them having to be in the same room to reap the benefits from it.
Further, the group project is the type of activity that you will see at some point in a Bachelor's degree program, as it is an accreditation requirement and also an activity that meets the American Association of the College of Nurses' Essentials of Baccalaureate Education, Essential VI, Interprofessional Communication and Collaboration for Improving Patient Health Outcomes. More and more you will see an integration of group work in advancing degree programs because interprofessional collaboration and communication has become vital to the improvement of patient outcomes. Hospitals and other health care facilities are being incentivized, via Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements related to improved outcomes directly associated to improved caregiver communication and collaboration (Nester, 2016).
References:
American Association of the College of Nurses (AACN). (2008). Essentials of Baccalaureate of Education: Essential VI - Interprofessional communication and collaboration for improving patient health outcomes.
Nester, J. (2016). The importance of interprofessional practice and education in the era of accountable care. The North Carolina Medical Journal, 77 (2), p. 128-132.