Assignment Task: Health Care Informatics
Introduction:
Simulation has become a prominent part of medical education, including healthcare schools and systems. Simulation managers and experts are in high demand to train staff members within the simulation lab walls, identify latent safety threats (situ simulations) in the healthcare system, and test the preparedness for new or rarely used protocols and equipment (Herrington & Gupta, 2023). These services are vital in improving patient care, developing novel educational methods, improving recruitment and retention processes, and enhancing patient safety. Specifically, simulation center services are essential with the skyrocketing application and integration of electronic health records (EHR) in the electronic age of healthcare. Thus, as a nursing educator responsible for developing an EHR training program for nurses within a simulation center, it is crucial to design strategies replicating the actual EHR production domain and incorporate patient safety events into the training. This discussion explores strategies to replicate the EHR system nurses use and methods for integrating patient safety-related cases into the simulations.
Question One: Strategies for Fully Implementing the EHR Practice Domain
The initial step for ensuring full implementation of the EHR practice domain would include replicating or mirroring the current EHR system in a simulation setting for nurses to practice using a real-world situations platform. As highlighted in Chapter 24, creating an environment that mirrors the clinical setting is the primary challenge in developing EHR competency through simulation. Thus, this calls for creating a high-fidelity simulation environment replicating the typical clinical workflow nurses experience in practice. It would require integrating the current EHR systems used in the clinical setting, complete with similar medication management and documentation processes (Nabovati et al., 2022). This would make it easy for nursing and healthcare workers to adapt quickly and improve in the challenging areas of applying EHR. The next step would entail conducting simulation-based EHR training to improve nurses' awareness of patient safety issues and enhance their competency in utilizing these systems. Primarily, the training would mirror real-world scenarios, allowing nurses to engage with similar documentation challenges they encounter on the job. This improves their ability to navigate the EHR effectively. The simulation center department would be responsible for offering guidance and mentorship to nurses and ensuring that the training process aligns with best practices and real-world applications.
Question Two: Identifying and Incorporating Patient Safety Events into EHR Simulation
One of the several ways of identifying and incorporating patient safety events into EHR simulation involves integrating real-life cases related to actual patient safety events. The simulation must address specific safety issues, such as medication errors, by incorporating real-world cases to allow nurses to practice managing and documenting these events within the actual EHR system. Patient safety cases will be identified by conducting an extensive analysis of the clinical incident reports since they can provide comprehensive insights into common patient safety errors, such as incorrect order management. After identifying safety errors, they will be translated into simulation cases for nurses to practice navigating the EHR system and resolving the arising issues. In addition, the identified patient safety scenarios will be incorporated into Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) to ensure nurses practice their EHR skills in a structured manner. As outlined in Chapter 24, tools like OSCEs can be adapted to specific safety-related cases to evaluate the effectiveness of the simulation. Consequently, this facilitates evaluating how nurses handle documentation and medication management tasks related to patient safety events using the EHR.