NUR-621 Implementing Meaningful Use
Grand Canyon University NUR-621 Implementing Meaningful Use-Step-By-Step Guide
This guide will demonstrate how to complete the Grand Canyon University NUR-621 Implementing Meaningful Use assignment based on general principles of academic writing. Here, we will show you the A, B, Cs of completing an academic paper, irrespective of the instructions. After guiding you through what to do, the guide will leave one or two sample essays at the end to highlight the various sections discussed below.
How to Research and Prepare for NUR-621 Implementing Meaningful Use
Whether one passes or fails an academic assignment such as the Grand Canyon University NUR-621 Implementing Meaningful Use depends on the preparation done beforehand. The first thing to do once you receive an assignment is to quickly skim through the requirements. Once that is done, start going through the instructions one by one to clearly understand what the instructor wants. The most important thing here is to understand the required format—whether it is APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.
After understanding the requirements of the paper, the next phase is to gather relevant materials. The first place to start the research process is the weekly resources. Go through the resources provided in the instructions to determine which ones fit the assignment. After reviewing the provided resources, use the university library to search for additional resources. After gathering sufficient and necessary resources, you are now ready to start drafting your paper.
How to Write the Introduction for NUR-621 Implementing Meaningful Use
The introduction for the Grand Canyon University NUR-621 Implementing Meaningful Use is where you tell the instructor what your paper will encompass. In three to four statements, highlight the important points that will form the basis of your paper. Here, you can include statistics to show the importance of the topic you will be discussing. At the end of the introduction, write a clear purpose statement outlining what exactly will be contained in the paper. This statement will start with “The purpose of this paper…” and then proceed to outline the various sections of the instructions.
How to Write the Body for NUR-621 Implementing Meaningful Use
After the introduction, move into the main part of the NUR-621 Implementing Meaningful Use assignment, which is the body. Given that the paper you will be writing is not experimental, the way you organize the headings and subheadings of your paper is critically important. In some cases, you might have to use more subheadings to properly organize the assignment. The organization will depend on the rubric provided. Carefully examine the rubric, as it will contain all the detailed requirements of the assignment. Sometimes, the rubric will have information that the normal instructions lack.
Another important factor to consider at this point is how to do citations. In-text citations are fundamental as they support the arguments and points you make in the paper. At this point, the resources gathered at the beginning will come in handy. Integrating the ideas of the authors with your own will ensure that you produce a comprehensive paper. Also, follow the given citation format. In most cases, APA 7 is the preferred format for nursing assignments.
How to Write the Conclusion for NUR-621 Implementing Meaningful Use
After completing the main sections, write the conclusion of your paper. The conclusion is a summary of the main points you made in your paper. However, you need to rewrite the points and not simply copy and paste them. By restating the points from each subheading, you will provide a nuanced overview of the assignment to the reader.
How to Format the References List for NUR-621 Implementing Meaningful Use
The very last part of your paper involves listing the sources used in your paper. These sources should be listed in alphabetical order and double-spaced. Additionally, use a hanging indent for each source that appears in this list. Lastly, only the sources cited within the body of the paper should appear here.
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Sample Answer for NUR-621 Implementing Meaningful Use
Electronic health records are the assemblage of patients and populations automatically stored health data and information digitally formatted. In addition, the information is shared and transmitted across network-enabled interfaces (Cowie et al., 2017). The data sharable may include demographics, medical history, medications, laboratory tests outcomes, radiology images, and patients’ statistics, e.g., age, weight, and may consist of billing information. Moreover, electronic health records incentive program avails incentive payments for specific healthcare providers to use electronic health records technology in ways that can impact patient care (Adler-Milstein et al., 2017). The digital health data inducement project demands caregivers to apply the abilities of digitally enabled data records to attain standards by which others may be measured, leading to improved patient care. The essay seeks to describe the stages of meaningful use and their measures. Similarly, it aims to explain the challenges and barriers facilities face in implementing each meaningful use stage. programs seek to offer financial incentives to enhance health care standards and security.
The Digital Health Data Incentive Programs
Meaningful use is an expression applied to refer to the minor U.S. government excellence or standard for automated medical information, delineating how digital transmission of the sick person should be shared across caregivers and policy implementers and between physicians and the sick. Its main goal is to boost standards, security and reduce health differences (Lammers et al., 2017). In addition, it seeks to involve the sick and the relatives, enhance care correlations, and populace well-being. Moreover, it strives to safeguard the seclusion and safety of individual medical information. Essentially, the digital health data incentive program avails incentive remittance to particular healthcare providers to use digital medical data technology in ways that can impact patient care (Lammers et al., 2017). The program prompts providers to apply the potentiality of their electronic health records to gain excellence by which others may be measured, leading to improved patient care.
The Stages of Meaningful Use and Their Measures
The 2009 legislation on information technology and health economics boosted the assumption of the digitalization of medical data.
The legislation provides and safeguards sick people’s health seclusion and safety concerns linked with the digital transmission of medical data through the various regulations that reinforce the secular and illegitimate imposition of the HIPPA laws (Lite et al., 2020). Moreover, qualified institutions for the Medicare electronic health record inductive project needed to attain the digital period 1 of health records by 2014 to get remittance. The government entrenched time limits, fixed and sometimes extended both phases (Lite et al., 2020). In the process, the government established institutions dealing with digital medical information and data to motivate clinicians and health institutions to implement meaningful use.
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Meaningful Use –Stage 1
The first period of the digital health data regulations is categorized into primary targets: the menu set goals, scientific standards regulations, and further scientific standard care regulations.
Menu Set Target Measures.
It required the organizations to meet or exceed the guest’s expectations. In addition, it needed the providers to attain marketing objectives and meet quality excellence and standards. Moreover, the providers were required to be cost-effective and accurate (Elysee et al., 2017). Similarly, the need to balance tradition and innovation was a required objective with the need to match equipment or facilities.
Clinical Quality
Both professional and health institutions were required to upgrade standard security, exhibit ability, and abate medical differences. For meaningful use eligibility, both health professionals and organizations had to apply computerized provider order entry (CPOE) to encode and transmit treatment prescriptions – including lab tests and radiology instruction – through a digital system rather than having hard copy materials. Moreover, the objective was to digitally functionalize medicine –medicine and medicine -allergy interfacing scrutiny through CPOE (Elysee et al., 2017). Similarly, the rule required that they create and relay legitimate instruction digitally. In the same vein, they must record the demographics and the introductory course of death in case of mortality ineligible hospitals.
The healthcare providers and professionals were required to keep the current difficulty list of functioning diagnostics, keep a dynamic list of therapeutics and allergies schedule, put down and illustrate changes in critical intimation, put down smoking reports for clients thirteen and above(Elysee et al., 2017). In addition, the requirement needed implementation of one analytical determination support regulation congruent to elevated analytical precedence together with the capability to trail concessions.
Additional Clinical Quality Care Measures
The additional clinical quality care measure for eligibility required the providers to report roving scientific standard measures. In involving the sick and relatives in their health management, they must avail the sick with their digital health data records and discharge instructions when they ask for it (Elysee et al., 2017). Moreover, they are required to improve care coordination. Hence, they need to digitally share critical scientific data among caregivers, patients, and sanctioned systems.
Measures
The measures entrenched included the requirement of more than thirty percent of invalids with at least one therapeutic management requested through the CPOE. In addition, implementation of medicine –medicine and medicine -allergy interaction is enabled through the entire electronic health records period. Moreover, the requirement needs to have more than 40 percent of all proper instruction transmitted digitally. The regulations required more than eighty percent of at least one entry or indication of unknown challenge or complication, eighty percent of medication lists sent digitally, and one scientific reinforcement regulation (Elysee et al., 2017). For the additional clinical quality care, the measures required to provide an accumulative number, attribute, and prohibition through attestation and digitally submit clinical standard regulations, conduct at least one electronic health records technology capability and conduct or review threat analysis, and implement security updates
Digital Health Record Phase 2
The core objectives of the digital Health Record phase 2 incentives program include scientific procedures and efficacy, logical use of healthcare assets, and public health (Elysee et al., 2017). In addition, it requires care coordination, patient safety, patient and family engagement. The health facilities are required by legislation to meet the measure to be eligible for the incentives.
Measures
The measures require care providers to apply ultra-modern processes into function, enhance health data integration, and embrace regulated figures configuration. The second phase stresses the scientific interchange of information among caregivers and enables invalid interaction.
Digital Health Record–Third Period
Stage three proposed regulation comprising several managerial and technological interchange, together with manageable reporting sessions and an accelerated priority on data standards, electronic health records interoperability, and healthcare diagnostics.
Measures
The regulations require the application of certified electronic health records technology to advance the clinical standard and other principles that need patient electronic access to motivate patient interaction (Lite et al., 2020). The facilities, care providers, and eligible physicians are required to access electronic health records to more than 80% of patients, with the alternative to viewing and downloading information.
Challenges and Barriers Faced by Facilities in Implementing phase 1
Implementation cost toward ambulatory digital data is expensive, and workflow changes have been a challenge. In addition, broadband and upload speed has proven a challenge to many facilities and providers. Similarly, the exhibited resistance is seen among the physicians and lack of support from medical staff. (Lite et al., 2020) The other challenge in implementing the meaningful use accrues from the less interaction between the physicians and the patients and the merger with other systems. The lack of interoperability standards has proven a challenge and a barrier to the implementation.
Challenges and Barriers Faced by Facilities in Implementing phase 2 of EHR Use.
Different facilities and providers experience non-similar challenges due to the diverse nature of the facilities. One of those challenges for many facilities and barriers comprises planning for the change of care requirement and exhorting clients to access the acute care patient portal (Cantor & Thorpe, 2018). Another challenge has been the need to expend a good amount of work to customize the primary functionality into the facilities’ software to accommodate the physician workflow as required. In addition, the patients are not used to accessing the portals to get their information. Moreover, the other barrier is data capture and reporting needed for attestation; it is challenging for the facilities to attest, and know-how vendors come up with figures (Cantor & Thorpe, 2018). Hence the constrain during the analysis to comprehend the details for attestation.
Challenges and Barriers Faced by Facilities in Implementing Phase 3 of Meaningful Use
Studies have shown various barriers and challenges faced by facilities and providers’ endeavors to illustrate digital health data. The facilities have admitted they have struggled to execute and carry out the requirement in several critical ways (Cantor & Thorpe, 2018). These include clinical summary assessment, security and threat analysis, and reporting patient smoking status, which proved to be the main challenges.
Conclusion
There are three fundamental constituents of meaningful use that require the application of approved electronic health records in a relevant way. Secondly, it demanded the electronic interchange of health records to better standards of health services. In addition, the application of approved electronic health records to advance clinical value is required at the third phase of the electronic health records usage. All three stages pose challenges to the facilities and eligible care providers both administratively and technologically. The measures are put in place to ensure the providers implement meaningful use requirements.
References
Adler-Milstein, J., Holmgren, A. J., Kralovec, P., Worzala, C., Searcy, T., & Patel, V. (2017). Electronic health record adoption in U.S. hospitals: the emergence of a digital “advanced use” divide. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 24(6), 1142-1148. https://doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocx080.
Cowie, M. R., Blomster, J. I., Curtis, L. H., Duclaux, S., Ford, I., Fritz, F., … & Zalewski, A. (2017). Electronic health records to facilitate clinical research. Clinical Research in Cardiology, 106(1), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00392-016-1025-6
Cantor, M. N., & Thorpe, L. (2018). Integrating data on social determinants of health into electronic health records. Health Affairs, 37(4), 585-590. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2017.1252
Elysee, G., Herrin, J., & Horwitz, L. I. (2017). An observational study of the relationship between meaningful use-based electronic health information exchange, interoperability, and medication reconciliation capabilities. Medicine, 96(41). https://dx.doi.org/10.1097%2FMD.0000000000008274
Lammers, E. J., & McLaughlin, C. G. (2017). Meaningful use of electronic health records and Medicare expenditures: evidence from a panel data analysis of U.S. Health Care Markets, 2010–2013. Health services research, 52(4), 1364-1386. https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6773.12550
Lite, S., Gordon, W. J., & Stern, A. D. (2020). Association of the meaningful use electronic health record incentive program with health information technology venture capital funding. JAMA network open, 3(3), e201402-e201402. https://doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.1402
Sample Answer 2 for NUR-621 Implementing Meaningful Use
Technology remains an important part of healthcare delivery today because of the benefits that it provides. Electronic health records (EHRs) systems remain of the most significant advancements in healthcare information technologies. A core idea based on the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act that was enacted under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) is the meaningful use program. The basis of the meaningful use is to encourage eligible healthcare professionals to utilize the EHRs technology in appropriate way by sharing and exchanging information seamlessly and effectively to enhance care delivery and patient care outcomes (Penner, 2017). As part of the Recovery Act of 2009, this incentive program is intended to fast-track the implementation of health information technology (HIT) in primary care practices and hospitals across the country. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) renamed the HER Incentive Program to Promoting Interoperability (PI) programs to ascertain its focus on enhancing patients’ access to health information (CMS 2018). The change of name is also meant to reduce the time and cost needed by providers to attain compliance with the program’s requirements. The purpose of this paper is to describe the meaningful use incentive program that aims at providing financial incentives and improving quality, safety and efficiency in care. The paper describes the three main stages of the incentive program and their measures, and explains the challenges and barriers that facilities encounter in implementing each stage of the model.
Description of the Three Stages of Meaningful Use and their Measures
Ineffective communication among providers and patient, incomplete documentation and misaligned incentives as well as errors in billing and coding and lost or inaccurate orders were some of the issues affecting the American healthcare system before the integration and use of electronic health records (EHRs) systems and other health information records (Penner, 2017). In her paper, Reisman (2017) asserts that despite massive efforts and investment in health information systems and technology, and several years of broader availability, the promised benefits of EHRs are yet to be fully attained. As a result, the government through HITECH and Recovery Acts rolled out the Meaningful Use program to incentivize physicians and other healthcare providers to use EHRs based on their eligibility to enhance quality and safe care. The Act offered $35 billion in incentives to not only promote but also expand the adoption and utilization of EHRs by qualifying hospitals, and healthcare professionals.
The Act proposed five-year timeline, beginning in 2011, and included three phases of the program under the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Every stage of program has its set of measures that providers should embrace and demonstrate as meaningful use of EHR technology. The implication is that they should deploy the technology to improve quality, safety, and efficiency in patient care.
The first stage of meaningful use is data capturing and sharing. According to the CMS, the stage was to occur between 2011 and 2012. The stage focused mainly on documentation uniformity, how the information should be captured and the structure of presenting it (CMS, 2017). The measures at this stage included using information in tracking key clinical conditions, communication of information for care coordination processes and initiation of reporting of clinical quality measures and public health information. The other measure at this stage is to utilize information in engaging patients and their families in care delivery. The implication of this stage is that clinical data should be captured electronically and patients get access to a digital copy of their health records.
The second stage entailed expansion of the EHR system to enhance care coordination with the aim of advancing clinical processes among facilities and providers. According to HealthIT.GOv, (n.d) stage two was to be implemented in 2014. The measures at this stage include increased requirements for e-prescribing and incorporation of laboratory results, electronic transmission of patient care summaries in different settings, and more patient-controlled or based data and information. Accordingly, stage two required professionals and health organizations to use certain vocabularies like SNOMED CT, RxNORM, and LOINC to enable cross-system interpretation of the clinical data and information (Penner, 2017). The stage required providers to transport clinical data from one system to another using Direct Project protocol. Imperatively, CMS’s modified stage 2 was released in 2015 and consolidated stages 1 and 2 into a new program. CMS changes reduced the complexity of the measures and carried some of objectives to stage three.
With changes to the naming of the incentive program, CMS incorporated new measures in stage three. Beginning in 2018, all qualifying physicians and organizations are mandated to participate in stage three. The measures include e-prescribing, improving of quality, safety and efficiency with the aim of enhance health outcomes, decision support for national high-priority situations and increased patient access to self-management tools (Wani & Malhotra, 2018). The measures also include access to comprehensive patient data through a strong health information exchange system and improving population health. Stage three measures also include maintenance of active medication list, and allergy list, protections for electronic health information, and recording of patient demographics. The CMS is currently using stage 3 measures to ensure that providers and healthcare organization embrace and adopt electronic health records and use them in a meaningful way to attain the financial incentives.
Challenges and Barriers Facilities Face in Implementing Each Stage of Meaningful Use
The implementation of meaningful measures at different stages or phases of the process provide significant benefits to care providers and facilities through the incentives and enhanced flow of information. However, as an aspect of electronic health records (EHRs) many believe that inherent challenges may hinder the full realization of these benefits (Penner, 2017). The implication is that stakeholders at each stage continue to encounter challenges and hurdles that must be addressed effectively. A core challenge at each stage is interoperability or the ability of various EHRs systems or software to exchange information for different providers to use it in making decisions (Reisman, 2017). Interoperability is a core aspect of EHRs to attain a complete picture of a patient’s health. Interoperability remains a significant challenge for providers to develop a system that will enables transfer of information across networks and provider systems. Attaining proper and effectiveness coordination lead to better health outcomes for patients.
Measures like information tracking to assess clinical conditions and transmission of patient care summaries in multiple settings present challenges to providers due to the need for patient privacy and confidentiality. Concerns about medical privacy with EHRs are not new and stakeholders believe that the threat from cyberattacks and hacking reduce the security and safety of EHRs and may lead to protracted legal issue (Wani & Malhotra, 2018). Common privacy concerns at each stage of the program include unauthorized access to records, tampering with records and the potential risk of losing information as a result of natural disaster. The meaningful use incentives have assisted in boosting the adoption of EHRs among physicians but at the same moment presented negative aspects. These include reduced efficiency, additional clerical load and increased risk of professional burnout (Rathert et al., 2019). Therefore, the measures at each stage have increased burden among healthcare providers.
The measures at stage two presents certain hurdles that include increased patient engagement requirements, longer reporting periods and higher thresholds that many providers and healthcare organizations cannot meet. Increasing the thresholds will push providers to make the information more of a routine habit, which may come with additional pains for the providers and require them to modify their workflow appropriately. The cost of implementing each stage requires additional organizational resources and stakeholder support (Wani & Malhotra, 2018). The exchange of health information across multiple settings implies that all facilities requiring any information should develop and integrate and effective electronic health records system which is costly for small physician practices.
Conclusion
Meaningful use is an incentive program by federal government’s agencies to expand and promote the use of EHRs for better outcomes and decisions making. The program contains measures that providers must follows to ensure that they have attained its goals. However, as the essay demonstrates, many measures of the program present challenges to stakeholders in their settings. The implication is that all involved in this program should develop strategies to mitigate the challenges for better adoption of the incentive program in different practice settings.
References
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) (2017). 2017 Program Requirements.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) (2018). Stage 3 Program Requirements for
Eligible Hospitals, CAHs and Dual-Eligible Hospitals Attesting to CMS. https://www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Legislation/EHRIncentivePrograms/Stage3_RequieEH
HealthIT.Gov (n.d). What is meaningful use? https://www.healthit.gov/faq/what-meaningful-use
Penner, S. J. (2017). Economics and financial management for nurses and nurse leaders (3rd
ed.). New York, NY: Springer Publishing. ISBN-13: 9780826160010
Rathert, C., Porter, T. H., Mittler, J. N., & Fleig-Palmer, M. (2019). Seven years after
Meaningful Use: Physicians’ and nurses’ experiences with electronic health records. Health care management review, 44(1), 30-40.
Reisman, M. (2017). EHRs: the challenge of making electronic data usable and interoperable.
Pharmacy and Therapeutics, 42(9), 572.
Wani, D., & Malhotra, M. (2018). Does the meaningful use of electronic health records improve
patient outcomes? Journal of Operations Management, 60, 1-18.