Key Topics in Health Care Technology Evaluation

Key Topics in Health Care Technology Evaluation

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The amount of new information and data, and the number of available technologies are growing at an ever-accelerating rate. Did you know that during any given 24 hours, humanity generates enough new information to fill the Library of Congress 70 times (Smolan & Erwitt, 2012)? As a nurse informaticist, it is important to keep current on new developments in the field, but with the rapid pace of change, that effort can be overwhelming. It is easier to keep current with key trends if nurse informaticists focus on selected issues.

In this Discussion, you consider key topics in the field of health care technology. You then consider the different approaches you could take when designing an evaluation in these areas. For example, if you are interested in usability, your goal could be to determine if a system is user friendly from the viewpoint of a nurse. A different goal might be to determine if the location of the system facilitates ease of use from the viewpoint of physicians.

Note: This Discussion serves as practice for the first part of your Evaluation Project. What you derive from your Discussion with colleagues will likely inform the work that you do in Part 1 of the Evaluation Project.

The Discussion focuses on the following major topics in the health care information field:

Implementing HIT Systems

Consumer health information
Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE)
Decision support systems
Electronic health records (EHR)
Tele-medicine and eHealth
Nursing documentation

Other Issues Related to the Use of HIT Systems

Interoperability
Unforeseen consequences
Usability

To prepare:

Select at least two topics from the lists above that are relevant to your current organization or that are of particular interest to you. Read the articles in this week’s Learning Resources that relate to these topics. Consider why these topics are of interest to you, what relevance they have to health care organizations, and how they impact your professional responsibilities. Choose one topic to be the focus of your Evaluation Project, and consider potential evaluation goals.
Determine the viewpoint from which you would approach the evaluation, and why.

By tomorrow, post a minimum of 550 words essay in APA format with a minimum of 3 references from the list of required resources below, that addresses the level one headings as numbered below:

1) Post the two topics you identified as most relevant to your organization or to you personally, and explain why you selected those topics.

2) Identify the topic you selected for your Evaluation Project, and propose three potential evaluation goals for this topic.

3) Identify the viewpoint you would use with each goal, and explain why.

Required Readings

Friedman, C. P., & Wyatt, J. C. (2010). Evaluation methods in biomedical informatics (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.

Chapter 2, “Evaluation as a Field” (pp. 21–47)

This chapter defines evaluation and shows how it differs from research. The chapter also includes a discussion the philosophy behind evaluation and the multiple approaches to evaluation.

Board on Health Care Services. (2012). Health IT and patient safety: Building safer systems for better care. The National Academies Press: Washington DC. Retrieved from http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13269

Chapter 2, “Evaluating the Current State of Patient Safety and Health IT” (pp. 31–58)

This chapter addresses the challenges of evaluation in health information technology due to the complex nature of technology and rapid changes in the field. The chapter also identifies barriers to evaluation and the threats posed to patient safety by a lack of evaluation.

Nursing Documentation

Hyun, S., Johnson, S. B., Stetson, P. D., & Bakken, S. (2009). Development and evaluation of nursing user interface screens using multiple methods. Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 42(6), 1004–1012.