Develop the Integrated Testing Plan

Implementing Meaningful Use

The need for quality healthcare delivery processes calls for effective approaches in managing patients’ information. Today, healthcare institutions are involved in the use of different techniques to facilitate the management of data and ensure dynamic research processes. Electronic health records are a technological approach applied in most healthcare institutions to facilitate the capture, storage, and general management of data and patient information. The effect application of the EHR system is always associated with the incentive programs involved in the management of databases. For the security of patient information, the management of data and general information is necessary for ensuring success in the operational processes. Databases should always remain secure and free from interference from cyber attackers. Through the use of EHR systems and databases, healthcare providers have been able to maintain the data’s safety and enhance sharing of information during healthcare delivery processes (Kwon & Johnson, 2018). Sharing of information kept in the databases should only be made possible for the healthcare professionals to prevent or stop unauthorized access from malicious individuals. As a result, there is a need for healthcare providers to incorporate effective and secure interoperability. There are different stages of the EHR system or meaningful use in regards to the implementation of technology in the healthcare processes. The purpose of this assignment is to describe the three major stages of meaningful use and their measures.

Meaningful Use

The EHR system is always designed to depend on the data management approaches used by an organization. In other words, the system’s design depends on the types of data to be collected and the level of security required (Shickel et al., 2017). The EHR system is supposed to provide an automated system for ensuring efficiency and easy access to patients’ data. When fully developed and integrated into healthcare, the EHR system can enhance quality management, decision-making support, as well as healthcare outcome reporting. For most healthcare organizations, a fully functional EHR system relies on the ideas behind the implementation process (Zaccagnini, 2019). One of the main pillars of meaningful us is the protection of patient’s information. All the activities undertaken under the EHR system aim at ensuring improved quality, efficiency, and safety of patient’s information or data. The use of the EHR system has also enhanced research and the application of evidence-based practices. Through these systems, healthcare professionals have been able to get data and determine the trends of various diseases.

Meaningful use has created easy and effective ways of sharing information between healthcare providers. Today, most healthcare organizations have adopted the use of interoperability that connects various departments and healthcare providers. The benefits of meaningful use are far-reaching; it provides a complete and accurate information system where caregivers can access the information they need at their fingertips; the system also facilitates the diagnosis of different healthcare problems and provides the best possible care (Gold et al., 2017). Finally, meaningful use has significantly improved the coordination of care as well as patient engagement. With the meaningful use, there has been the reduction of medication errors and facilitation of the processes that leads to a high level of efficiency and speed in the diagnosis and the general healthcare delivery processes. The EHR system facilitates coordination among the healthcare workers; as a result, there has been increased efficiency in the healthcare processes.

Stages Involved in the Implementation of Meaningful Use

Stage 1

Develop the Integrated Testing Plan

The implementation of meaningful use should always involve analysis of healthcare information systems, the types of data collected by any given healthcare organization, and interoperability. Stage one is considered to be one of the most critical parts of the EHR system development process. It mainly involves the organization of data and information for ensuring the safety and usability of the data. Through the organization of information, healthcare providers have been able to find it easier to carry out the implementation of subsequent steps of the EHR system. One of the main objectives of the EHR system/meaningful use is the coordination of care through integrating the EHR system with databases; this has always been achieved at stage one through clinical data tracking (Ramaprasad et al., 2020). The process incorporates utilization of data to determine the trends in healthcare quality. The analysis of stage one entirely depends on the security of information as well as success in sharing information.

Challenges and Barriers Faced by Facilities in Implementation of Stage 1

Stage one is an essential stage when implementing meaningful use although it is associated with several challenges of barriers. Temporary loss of productivity in the healthcare delivery processes is one of the problems or challenges found in stage one (Kaye, 2017). The implementation of the new systems in the operational processes usually interrupts the normal operational processes. Besides, healthcare professionals may take longer to adapt to the new environment. Stage one in the implementation process ought to incorporate continuous training processes to develop skills and competency in the use of this new technology. Also, there is the need to prepare healthcare professionals mentally and emotionally to successfully adopt the change process.

Stage 2

In stage two, there is always further integration of e-prescriptions in line with the outcomes of healthcare processes. Stage two mainly involve practices aimed at enhancing sharing of information; for instance, there is always implementation of interoperability to ensure patient’s information can be accessed by different healthcare professionals and healthcare providers. The success of stage two is measured in terms of the information shared through the interconnected networks. Full use of the EHR systems always depend on the success of stage two (Nair & Dreyfus, 2018). The success of stage two in the implementation processes also depends on stage one.

Challenges and Barriers Faced by Facilities in Implementation of Stage 2

The consideration of e-prescription in stage two often makes it very difficult to enhance sharing of information among healthcare providers. Stage two is also associated with the breach of data privacy. Through the integration of e-prescription, the system often becomes vulnerable to attacks due to delays or uninstalled security systems. To overcome these barriers, there is always the need to involve professionals who can apply technical approaches in maintaining the security of the system (Nair & Dreyfus, 2018). The incorporation of e-prescription is associated with high costs as well as the intense training that is required. Most healthcare organization ought to use huge amount of their revenues to ensure success in stage two.

Stage 3

All the activities or processes in stage one and two are actualized in stage three. Besides, this stage involves analyzing and integrating different factors developed in stages one and two. Successful implementation of stage three will ensure that the system operates at maximum efficiency.

Challenges and Barriers Faced by Facilities in Implementation of Stage 3

Stage three mainly involves the integration or incorporation of the processes undertaken in stage one and stage two. Therefore, the problems encountered in these two previous stages may interfere with the implementation processes in stage three. Lack of the essential resources in stage three may also interfere with the successful implementation process. The success of the EHR system or meaningful use can be realized when all the requirements in the three stages are met despite the challenges. Besides, all the stakeholders ought to be considered in the entire process of implementation. They need to be trained on the application of the new systems and how to improve healthcare services with it.

Conclusion

Adherence to the three stages in the implementation of meaningful use may lead to successful outcomes in the healthcare delivery processes and data management. The EHR mainly consists of a range of data that includes medical history, demographics, immunization status, and personal statistics. In the current digital age, every healthcare facility needs to implement the use of the HER system with the aim of facilitating effective care delivery. With the increasing number of patients in the hospitals, the functions and significance of the EHR system remain vital; however, there are several factors that affect the implementation of the technology. Finally, meaningful use has created easy and effective ways of sharing information between healthcare providers. Today, most healthcare organizations have adopted the use of interoperability that connects various departments and healthcare providers.

References

Gold, R., Cottrell, E., Bunce, A., Middendorf, M., Hollombe, C., Cowburn, S., … & Melgar, G. (2017). Developing electronic health record (EHR) strategies related to health center patients’ social determinants of health. The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, 30(4), 428-447. https://www.jabfm.org/content/30/4/428.short

Kaye, S. P. (2017). Nurses’ attitudes toward meaningful use technologies: an integrative review. CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing, 35(5), 237-247. https://journals.lww.com/cinjournal/fulltext/2017/05000/nurses__attitudes_toward_meaningful_use.4.aspx

Kwon, J., & Johnson, M. E. (2018). Meaningful Healthcare Security: Does “Meaningful-Use” Attestation Improve Information Security Performance?. MIS Quarterly, 42(4), 1043-1067. https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.25300/MISQ/2018/13580

Nair, A., & Dreyfus, D. (2018). Technology alignment in the presence of regulatory changes: The case of meaningful use of information technology in healthcare. International journal of medical informatics, 110, 42-51. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1386505617304264

Ramaprasad, A., Syn, T., & Thirumalai, M. (2020). An ontological map for meaningful use of healthcare information systems (Muhis). In HEALTHINF 2014: Proceedings of the International Conference on Health Informatics, Marta Bienkiewicz, Christine Verdier, Guy Plantier, Tanja Schultz, Ana Fred and Hugo Gamboa, eds., SCITEPRESS. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2408850

Shickel, B., Tighe, P. J., Bihorac, A., & Rashidi, P. (2017). Deep EHR: a survey of recent advances in deep learning techniques for electronic health record (EHR) analysis. IEEE journal of biomedical and health informatics, 22(5), 1589-1604. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8086133/

Zaccagnini, M. A. R. Y. (2019). Doctor Of Nursing Practice Essentials: A new model for advanced practice nursing. S.l.: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

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Important information for writing discussion questions and participation

Welcome to class

Hello class and welcome to the class and I will be your instructor for this course. This is a -week course and requires a lot of time commitment, organization, and a high level of dedication. Please use the class syllabus to guide you through all the assignments required for the course. I have also attached the classroom policies to this announcement to know your expectations for this course. Please review this document carefully and ask me any questions if you do. You could email me at any time or send me a message via the “message” icon in halo if you need to contact me. I check my email regularly, so you should get a response within 24 hours. If you have not heard from me within 24 hours and need to contact me urgently, please send a follow up text to

I strongly encourage that you do not wait until the very last minute to complete your assignments. Your assignments in weeks 4 and 5 require early planning as you would need to present a teaching plan and interview a community health provider. I advise you look at the requirements for these assignments at the beginning of the course and plan accordingly. I have posted the YouTube link that explains all the class assignments in detail. It is required that you watch this 32-minute video as the assignments from week 3 through 5 require that you follow the instructions to the letter to succeed. Failure to complete these assignments according to instructions might lead to a zero. After watching the video, please schedule a one-on-one with me to discuss your topic for your project by the second week of class. Use this link to schedule a 15-minute session. Please, call me at the time of your appointment on my number. Please note that I will NOT call you.

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Your initial discussion post should be a minimum of 200 words and response posts should be a minimum of 150 words. Be advised that I grade based on quality and not necessarily the number of words you post. A minimum of TWO references should be used for your initial post. For your response post, you do not need references as personal experiences would count as response posts. If you however cite anything from the literature for your response post, it is required that you cite your reference. You should include a minimum of THREE references for papers in this course. Please note that references should be no more than 5 years old except recommended as a resource for the class. Furthermore, for each discussion board question, you need ONE initial substantive response and TWO substantive responses to either your classmates or your instructor for a total of THREE responses. There are TWO discussion questions each week, hence, you need a total minimum of SIX discussion posts for each week. I usually post a discussion question each week. You could also respond to these as it would count towards your required SIX discussion posts for the week.

I understand this is a lot of information to cover in 5 weeks, however, the Bible says in Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us. Even in times like this, we are encouraged by God’s word that we have that ability in us to succeed with His strength. I pray that each and every one of you receives strength for this course and life generally as we navigate through this pandemic that is shaking our world today. Relax and enjoy the course!

Hi Class,

Please read through the following information on writing a Discussion question response and participation posts.

Contact me if you have any questions.

Important information on Writing a Discussion Question

Your response needs to be a minimum of 150 words (not including your list of references)
There needs to be at least TWO references with ONE being a peer reviewed professional journal article.
Include in-text citations in your response
Do not include quotes—instead summarize and paraphrase the information
Follow APA-7th edition
Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

Participation –replies to your classmates or instructor

A minimum of 6 responses per week, on at least 3 days of the week.
Each response needs at least ONE reference with citations—best if it is a peer reviewed journal article
Each response needs to be at least 75 words in length (does not include your list of references)
Responses need to be substantive by bringing information to the discussion or further enhance the discussion. Responses of “I agree” or “great post” does not count for the word count.
Follow APA 7th edition
Points will be deducted if the above is not followed
Remember to use and follow APA-7th edition for all weekly assignments, dCiting Sources
The Writing Center is a iscussion questions, and participation points.
Here are some helpful links
Student paper example
great resource

Develop the Integrated Testing Plan