Technology Needs Assessment Essay

Healthcare providers and organizations aim to improve patient care quality and safety. Therefore, medical facilities incorporate evidence-based interventions into the practice to bridge a gap in the quality or safety of nursing care. Need assessment is conducted to identify areas of concern that must be improved to achieve optimal health outcomes. This paper focuses on the need for new telehealth technology, the significance of need assessment, issues in nursing care that will be addressed by the proposed technology, safety requirements and regulatory considerations associated with the use of the new technology, patient confidentiality and privacy protections the technology must address, and how the acquisition of the technology will be affected by stakeholders (internal and external) and end users, Technology Needs Assessment Essay

ORDER  HERE A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

Executive Summary

Video-teleconferencing is the proposed new telehealth technology to be implemented in healthcare organizations. The choice for this telehealth technology was based on need assessment results. It was established that high school students from surrounding towns have limited access to school counsellors or other mental health resources. For this reason, St. Anthony Medical Center (SAMC) should expand the delivery of mental health resources to young community members to achieve positive mental health outcomes, including improving quality of life. Studies show that video-teleconferencing technology enhances young people’s mental and behavioural healthcare access (Koffel et al., 2018). Therefore, incorporating video-teleconferencing into St. Anthony Medical Center (SAMC) practices will enable this medical facility to expand mental health care delivery to young people in their community, resulting in positive mental health outcomes. Video-teleconferencing technology will enable mental healthcare professionals working at SAMC to provide counselling and mental health education to high school students in rural areas remotely, improving their mental health care.

Significance of a Needs Assessment

Need assessment enables healthcare providers to identify gaps in the current practice that require improvement. Based on assessment results, healthcare professionals then research to identify the best evidence-based intervention for improving the current practice. The selected evidence-based strategy is implemented in the medical facility to improve the underperforming area, resulting in positive outcomes such as low morbidity and mortality rates. On the other hand, failure to conduct a need assessment affects healthcare organizations adversely. In such cases, healthcare organizations implement a change project that is ineffective in addressing a particular clinical issue or a current practice gap, resulting in adverse health outcomes such as more extended stays and a high hospital readmission rate. Technology Needs Assessment Essay

Issues in Nursing Care Impacting Patient Outcomes, which Video-Teleconferencing Technology will address

Video-teleconferencing technology aims to address different issues in nursing care. First, the technology will reduce nurses’ workload. Video-teleconferencing technology will support virtual counselling and mental health education among high school students in rural areas. As a result, the number of high school students seeking mental healthcare from the medical facility will reduce, resulting in a low workload among nurses. According to Labrague et al. (2022), high nurses’ workload compromises the quality and safety of patient care in healthcare organizations since it exposes nurses to fatigue and work-related distress, compromising their capacity to offer high-quality, efficient, and safe patient care. Therefore, the decline in nurses’ workload will enable nurses working at SAMC to offer high-quality and efficient care to patients seeking treatment for other health conditions, resulting in optimal health outcomes.

Safety Requirements and Regulatory Considerations when using Video-Teleconferencing Technology

Healthcare professionals should adhere to safety requirements when using video-teleconferencing technology to provide counselling and mental health education to high school students in rural areas remotely. The HIPAA Security Rule requires that healthcare providers protect patients’ electronically stored, known as “Protected health information”, from being accessed by unauthorized users (Dagher et al., 2018). Additionally, healthcare professionals should adhere to regulatory measures when using video-teleconferencing technology to deliver counselling and mental health education. According to Mello et al. (2018), the United States federal law limits the electronic sharing of protected health information. The law requires healthcare providers to obtain patient consent before sharing health-related information with third parties, including clinicians not involved in treatment and family members. Technology Needs Assessment Essay

Patient Confidentiality and Privacy Protections that Video-Teleconferencing Technology must address

Video-teleconferencing technology in providing virtual counselling and mental health education to high school students in rural areas must consider patient confidentiality and privacy protections. Patient confidentiality and privacy protection require healthcare professionals to treat health-related information of an individual patient as private and confidential. Clinicians must integrate cyber security measures into their operations to enhance patient safety and prevent unauthorized access to patient’s medical data. Thus, clinicians working at SAMC should maintain the confidentiality, security, and integrity of patients’ health information collected during video-teleconferencing by protecting it from unauthorized users and ensuring the most appropriate physical and technical safeguards. Additionally, patient confidentiality and privacy protections require healthcare providers to obtain patients’ consent before disclosing data to third parties. Therefore, healthcare professionals working at SAMC should obtain consent from an individual patient before disclosing health-related information collected during video-teleconferencing-based counselling and mental health education to other clinicians or family members.

The Impact of Stakeholders and End Users on the Acquisition Video-Teleconferencing Technology

Internal and external stakeholders will impact the acquisition of video-teleconferencing technology. Internal stakeholders include the management of SAMC and the IT team. The management will approve the implementation of video-teleconferencing technology in the organization and provide the required resources, contributing to successful implementation. Additionally, the IT team will provide the technical support and education required to implement video-teleconferencing technology. On the other hand, the client, Murray County Central School District, is an external stakeholder that will influence the acquisition of the new technology. The school’s concern for limited access to mental resources among high school students from rural areas has necessitated the implementation of video-teleconferencing technology in the medical centre. This new technology would enhance access to mental healthcare in this population by enabling healthcare professionals to provide counselling and mental education to high school students remotely. In addition to stakeholders, the acquisition of the new technology is influenced by the end users, including mental healthcare providers working at SAMC. The new technology must enable these healthcare professionals to provide virtual mental healthcare effectively. Technology Needs Assessment Essay

Conclusion and Recommendation

The proposed new video-teleconferencing technology. Muir et al. (2020) reported that online video therapy services eliminate access-to-care barriers among people with mental health disorders living in rural areas. Therefore, video-teleconferencing technology should be incorporated into SANC’s clinical practices to facilitate the virtual provision of counselling and mental health education among high school students in rural areas. Enhanced mental health care will improve health outcomes, quality of life, and overall well-being in this patient population.

References

Dagher, G. G., Mohler, J., Milojkovic, M., & Marella, P. B. (2018). Ancile: Privacy-preserving framework for access control and interoperability of electronic health records using blockchain technology. Sustainable cities and society, 39, 283-297.

Koffel, E., Bramoweth, A. D., & Ulmer, C. S. (2018). Increasing access to and utilization of cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I): a narrative review. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 33, 955-962.

Labrague, L. J., de Los Santos, J. A. A., & Fronda, D. C. (2022). Factors associated with missed nursing care and nurse‐assessed quality of care during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Journal of nursing management, 30(1), 62-70.

Mello, M. M., Adler, J. U., Ding, K. L., & Savage, L. (2018). Legal barriers to the growth of health information exchange—boulders or pebbles? The Milbank Quarterly, 96(1), 110–143.

Muir, S. D., de Boer, K., Nedeljkovic, M., & Meyer, D. (2020). Barriers and facilitators of videoconferencing psychotherapy implementation in veteran mental health care environments: a systematic review. BMC Health Services Research, 20(1), 1-11. Technology Needs Assessment Essay

Guiding Questions

Technology Needs Assessment

This document is designed to give you questions to consider and additional guidance to help you successfully complete the technology needs assessment assignment. You may find it useful to use this document as a pre-writing exercise, an outlining tool, or as a final check to ensure that you have sufficiently addressed all the grading criteria for this assignment. This document is a resource to help you complete the assignment. Do not turn in this document as your assignment submission.

Composing the Executive Summary

Explain the relevance and importance of a needs assessment.

• How will the needs assessment help ensure positive outcomes?
• What are possible consequences for the organization of not conducting a needs assessment? Technology Needs Assessment Essay

Identify the key issues in nursing care affecting patient outcomes that the new or upgraded technology will address.

• What areas of concern will strongly influence leadership’s purchase decision?
• For example, some of these issues might address using the new technology to aggregate data that can be used to:
  • Monitor trends that affect the use of bundles specific to:
    • Ventilator assisted pneumonia (VAP) care.
    • Catheter associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) management.
    • Surgical site infection (SSI).
  • Improve antibiotic stewardship.
  • Monitor 30-day readmission rates specific to congestive heart failure.
  • Support clinical decision making/evidence-based practice (EBP).

Identify the safety requirements and regulatory considerations when using this technology.

• Consider issues, such as meaningful use or compliance with federal and state standards for reimbursement.

Identify the patient confidentiality and privacy protections that the new or upgraded technology must address. Technology Needs Assessment Essay

• What information security safeguards are features of this technology?
• What are the potential security risks associated with this technology?

Describe the potential impact of internal and external stakeholders and end users on the acquisition of the new or upgraded technology.

• Who are the stakeholders, and what is their role?
• How might these stakeholders influence organizational change?
• How would you engage stakeholders in sustaining a vision for change?
• How will you address the possibility of staff resistance?

Support assertions, arguments, conclusions, and recommendations with relevant and credible evidence.

• Integrate relevant and credible evidence from at least five peer-reviewed journals or professional industry publications.
• Provide clear and explicit supporting evidence.
  • How or why does particular evidence support a claim?
  • Will your reader see the connection?
• Summarize, paraphrase, and quote your sources appropriately.

Write clearly and concisely in a logically coherent and appropriate form and style.

• Write with a specific purpose and audience in mind.
• Adhere to scholarly and disciplinary writing standards and APA formatting requirements.
  

  ORDER HERE NOW

Submission Reminders

• Have you explained the relevance and importance of the needs assessment?
• Have you the identified the key issues in nursing care affecting patient outcomes that the new or upgraded technology will address?
• Have you identified the technology requirements, including regulatory considerations?
• Have you described the potential impact of internal and external stakeholders and end users on the acquisition of the new technology or technology upgrade?
• Are your claims and conclusions well supported by at least five sources of credible evidence?
• Is your executive summary properly formatted and 3–4 pages in length, including the title page and reference page?
• Have you proofread your writing to minimize errors that could distract the reader and make it more difficult to focus on the substance of your summary? Technology Needs Assessment Essay