Review the Case Study on page 454 of Nelson & Staggers. Provide a response in a Word document of 350 to 500 words. Support your discussion with evidence from the professional literature. Two (2) peer reviewed journal article required.
CASE STUDY
Last month you were hired with the title Health Informatics Specialist at an independent community care hospital with 350 beds. The hospital includes a comprehensive outpatient clinic, a rehabilitation center with both inpatient and outpa- tient services, a cardiac care center, and an emergency room In addition, four family health centers are located throughout the community. More than 930 primary care and specially, physicians are associated with the hospital, which has a staff of just over 2000 employees. The hospital has an EHR in place
The hospital has a working relationship with a major aca-demic medical center located 23 miles away. Acute care
patients who need more extensive treatment are usually trans-ferred to the medical center. These are often emergency situ-ations, and data are freely shared among the institutions with the best interests of the patient in mind. Located directly beside the hospital is a 194-bed skilled nursing home. While the nursing home has its own medical staff consisting of a physician and two nurse practitioners,patients needing consults or additional care are usually seen at the hospital with follow-up at physicians’ offices. While the nursing home, most of the physicians’ offices, and the hos-pital are independent institutions, there is a long history of sharing health-related data when treating patients who live at the nursing home and are seen at the hospital or in the phy.
sicians’ offices. This coordination is seen as a general benefit for a number of patients. It appears that most patients have signed a form giving the hospital permission to send informaton to the nursing home. However, these forms have been stored in individual offices, so it is difficult to determine who has signed what forms and what permission has or has not been given to share information among the nursing home, hospital, and independent medical practices.
Discussion Questions
1. What additional information is needed to clarify what problems may exist and what changes may be needed in
terms of data that are shared among the institutions?
2. Can the EHR system and/or e-mail be used to share data among these different institutions more effectively and securely? If yes, how would this be done? For example, what agreements, policies, and procedures might need to be developed?
3. In your position as Health Informatics Specialist, how would you go about determining whether there are other
potential security issues that now need to be managed by the hospital?
