EHR Need Assessment

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NURSING INFORMATICS Need Assessment Electronic Health Records (EHR) is considered a new standard for medicine performance. According to world health organization, the electronic health record is the most resource intensive and complex activity in any medical practice (WHO, 2006). Despite advancement in technology, preparation and needs assessment, EHR can be successfully implemented. Need assessment could provide relevant feedback to upper management in correct decision making, thus identifying the requirement and areas that are essential for the wellbeing of hospitals and patients (Ash, 2004). Implementing Electronic health records will solve many ongoing problems, but whether the EHR successfully meets the expectations depends upon how complex …show more content…

This is a facilitative process and facilitates feedback from all those who are involved. It will ensure that management has been given proper information and feedback and at the same time, will create a sense of involvement and ownership in the process that will improve staff and physician systems. Factors need to be considered in need assessment: The factors that need to be considered should have a clear focus on the current state of practice. Listed below are some factors: 1. Are administrative processes well documented, efficient and …show more content…

For example, if the current waiting time for the patient is 20 minutes, it should be reduced to 5 minutes or less and everyone should be involved in this practice processes. For achieving this, it is necessary to focus on comprehensive list of things that everyone would like to improve. Ultimate target should aim at identifying how the practices can be run in all the best possible ways around the world. It is important to identify why this gap exists, which requires data collection. Data can be collected by brain storming sessions, reading books, interviews, patient satisfaction surveys, reviewing current procedures and policies. The aim is to identify why the current processes fails in achieving the ideal state. Reasons may include: lack of resources, failure to implement procedures and policies, high staff turnover, inadequate training etc. Conclusion: Need assessment are effective tools that are helping organizations to improve the way in which they perform. Needs assessments have the potential to be costly and also require time and expertise. If hospitals desire to improve practice, need assessment is a great tool in determining where the organization currently stands and where it has the potential of going in the

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