Cloud computing in healthcare industry has turned out to be an extremely advantageous technology. However, it needs to be considered that this particular technology has both its pros and cons. As far as the issues are concerned, there are numerous security and privacy challenges associated with healthcare cloud computing. In fact, there may be private, personal, or Data maintained in a cloud may contain personal, private or classified data in a cloud that could be misused or disclosed without improper safety measures (Koontz, 2013). For the same reason, healthcare organizations throughout the globe are hesitant to adopt cloud due to the many concerns associated to data privacy, compliance, and jurisdiction.

Challenges of Cloud Computing

One of the major challenges related to cloud computing is data privacy. For each entity, the patient data is confidential. The protection of individual information is not just a technical challenge; it is also a great moral and legal concern. Whereas privacy protection in all computing systems is technically complex, it is more complicated in a cloud setting due to “the distributed nature of clouds and the possible lack of awareness on the part of the potential cloud service customers regarding where data is stored and who has or can have access” (Koontz, 2013). Thus, cloud  is one of those progressed technologies that demonstrate vulnerability towards cyber gaps. As a consequence, the electronic health records of patients can be easily accessed through breaches and hacking methods.

It is, therefore, extremely significant to identify, understand, and address the privacy challenges related to cloud computing in the healthcare organizations. Sensitive data has been reported to be breached by the hackers in several incidences resulting in tremendous repercussions for the technologically-victimized individual. Thus, an excessively premium and effective security measure is essential for preventing the probabilities of data loss (Zeadally & Badra, 2015).

References

Koontz, L. D. (2013). Information privacy in the evolving healthcare environment. Chicago: HIMSS.

Zeadally, S., & Badra, M. (2015). Privacy in a digital, networked world: Technologies, implications and solutions. Switzerland: Springer.

The post Cloud Computing in Healthcare and its Challenges appeared first on Mark8ng.com.

Introduction

In the contemporary healthcare industry, nursing has been triumphant in gaining an ever-increasing influence in almost every aspect in the deliverance of healthcare. Therefore, it is significantly imperative for healthcare practitioners to develop and/or polish their leadership skills. As far as graduate level nurses are concerned, it is equally important for them to develop such skills in the early stages of their jobs. The development and constant demonstration of leadership skills could facilitate graduate level nurses to impart their duties in an effective manner.

Skills of Graduate Level Nurses

In the recent times, increased stress is given to the involvement of the patients in the overall planning and accomplishment of quality care. For the same reason, it has become rather indispensable for the graduate level nurses to make honest endeavors for the development of certain leadership attributes. Such endeavors could ultimately make it possible for them deliver individualized and high-quality care to the patients. In this regard, several principal attributes are of utmost importance including contextual knowledge, professionalism, communication skills, empathy, transparency, responsibility, and interpersonal skills. All the mentioned skills are extremely critical for the graduate level nurses for developing and nurturing professional expertise.

Proper Knowledge and Demonstration

To begin with, the vitality of contextual knowledge must not be ignored if a graduate nurse needs to develop himself/herself as a leader in his/her career. In simple words, the attainment of contextual knowledge signifies that the nurse possesses the knowledge of issues and apprehensions associated with this field including financial aspects, healthcare economics, resource accessibility, social services’ availability, and regulations and limitations related to the nursing practice. Second, the demonstration of an empathized nature to oversee the patients’ individual needs and welfare is, without a doubt, an extremely critical attribute. In fact, the exhibition of empathy helps patients to voice their true feelings and concerns ultimately helping in the attainment of preferred health outcomes. As a consequence, the graduate nurses can develop their communication and interpersonal skills by paying heed to the patients’ thoughts and opinions. It needs to be remembered that provision of healthcare is greatly dependent on understanding the experiences of the patients.

Good Relationship with Patients and Colleagues

A leader needs to be sensitive to his followers’ and/or subordinates’ wellbeing. Similarly, when it comes to the patient safety and wellbeing, a graduate level nurse also needs to develop attributes of compassion and sympathy. Nurses exhibiting such valuable traits eventually become role models in the deliverance of quality care. Interpersonal skills also play a great role in helping graduate nurses to enjoy peaceful relationships with both their patients and colleagues. In particular, excellent social skills allow them to have fewer conflicts with their counterparts. When a nurse understands the importance of a healthy and peaceful workplace environment, he/she is able to build a harmonious environment in which strong relationships with other healthcare professional, patients, and their family members are nurtured. In the same connection, graduate nurses learn to develop professional attributes as they tend to remain aware of their personal and professional expectations and balance them accordingly.

Professionalism

As far as professionalism is concerned, it is all about the creation and maintenance of healthy interpersonal relationships in one’s professional life. When a nurse tends to become a professional, he/she believes in his/her contribution as an effective team member who is highly motivated to impart his duties and responsibilities with high accuracy and efficiency. Similarly, one can never ignore the significance of accountability in the healthcare industry as peoples’ lives are on stake. It is absolutely imperative that nurses act in a just manner and acknowledge their mistakes/errors.

As a graduate level nurse, I believe that I need to develop certain leadership skills to become more competent in my field. I am looking forward to exhibit a more professional behavior through the acquisition of contemporary demands of the nursing field. It is my belief that educating oneself on a constant basis is remarkably important for the demonstration of professionalism. If the truth is told, my personal and professional experiences have helped me in developing certain leadership attributes that could help me in my nursing career in the long run. I possess strong emotional intelligence, excellent communication skills, and a concrete work ethic. My passion for my work helps me to help my colleagues as an efficient team player. The possession of all the mentioned characteristics helps me in comprehending individual situations and unique patient needs. However, there is always a room for improvement and I believe that I need to concentrate on other areas to work as an effective leader.

Conclusion

To cut a long story short, “there’s a leadership hierarchy in nursing that ranges from individual performance and productive teamwork to inspiring higher performance in others and creating enduring excellence, and each one of us must be challenged to keep developing over the course of our careers” (McBride, 2011). At every stage of nursing, it is necessary for the healthcare facilities and organizations to develop training and mentoring programs for nurses so that they can attain distinctive leadership skills. In fact, it must be understood by all healthcare organizations that investment in nursing development programs is essential for the organizational success (Kelly, Runge, & Spencer, 2015). Similarly, graduate level nurses also need to realize the criticality of their jobs and strive hard to develop and retain the essential attributes of leadership to progress in their professional lives.

References

Kelly, L., Runge, J., & Spencer, C. (2015). Predictors of Compassion Fatigue and Compassion Satisfaction in Acute Care Nurses. Journal Of Nursing Scholarship, 47(6), 552-528.

Mcbride, A. B. (2011). Taking Leadership Seriously. AJN, American Journal of Nursing, 111(3), 11. doi:10.1097/10.1097/01.naj.0000395214.70390.fc

Thistlethwaite, J., & McKimm, J. (2016). Health care professionalism at a glance. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The post Graduate Nurses, Attributes of Leadership     appeared first on Mark8ng.com.

Introduction

The way telemedicine has revolutionized the healthcare industry is astonishing. Just few decades back, it was an impossible thing to imagine that a patient can be treated without actually visiting a doctor. Times have changed and so have healthcare industry and the treatment options. This paper talks about the numerous ways telemedicine has played a significant role in improving and transforming nursing informatics in particular and healthcare industry in general. It also discusses how the availability and convenient use of telemedicine services have benefitted people throughout the developed and developing world. In the last section, the reasons telemedicine has an illuminating future have been mentioned along with various criticisms of the technology.

Telemedicine

In the contemporary healthcare industry, cost-effectiveness, quality, accessibility, and equity are major issues faced by the clients/patients. In fact, these issues are experienced by people in both developing and developed countries. With the introduction and employment of the modern-day Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) including smart phones, computers, and the Internet, the researchers and innovators have been successful in alleviating the health problems considering the convenience and inexpensiveness of such technologies. In this regard, the term telemedicine refers to “the use of modern information technology, especially two-way interactive audio/video communications, computers, and telemetry, to deliver health services to remote patients and to facilitate information exchange between primary care physicians and specialists at some distances from each other” (Darkins & Cary, 2000). When it comes to nursing informatics, the development and expansion of telemedicine has considerably changed the ways nurses serve consumers and patients.

Contribution of Telemedicine

Telemedicine has remarkably contributed to nurture a value-based and high-quality environment for the enhancement of patient engagement and satisfaction along with better accessibility and reduced costs. Distance is the basic determinant in the utilization of telemedicine as healthcare professionals use ICTs to remote areas considering the inaccessibility and inconvenience. Thus, ICTs makes it possible for the doctors and patients to share the pertinent details for apt and timely diagnosis, evaluation, research, treatment, and prevention of the disease/medical condition. Nursing informatics has segmented telemedicine into various applications such as cardiological, neurological, dermatological, and respiratory categories to be used in the management of various pathologies, conditions, and diseases.

Alternative of Traditional Method

Furthermore, people in their final stages of AIDS/HIV are benefiting from telemedicine as their human contact is decreased. Yet, the patients are accepted, respected, and treated through telemedicine (Breen & Matusitz, 2009). Similarly, telemedicine has guaranteed patient satisfaction due to a decrease in travelling time, waiting time, and minimization of other issues related to appointments and follow-ups. Telemedicine has turned out to be an incredibly life-saving alternative to traditional methods of healthcare counseling particularly for terminal and debilitated populations living in remote regions.

Telemedicine in Mercy Health System

Mercy Health System (a hospital without a bed) is a virtual care center wherein nurses and doctors keep working around the clock. This one-of-a-kind healthcare facility in the United States offers remote support to 38 smaller hospitals situated in states from Oklahoma to North Carolina (for emergency rooms, intensive-care units, and various other programs). A majority of these hospitals have no on-site physician 24/7. Mercy Virtual President reported a 30% decrease in the number of deaths than anticipated. Also, a 35% decrease in the average length stay of the patients was made possible due to the provision of telemedicine services at the facility. The observations indicate that the lives of 1000+ people were saved with the special assistance provided through telemedicine. According to a trade group, the American Telemedicine Association, remote medical care was provided to more than 15 million Americans in 2015 alone which ultimately grew by 30% the next year (Breen & Matusitz, 2009).

International Impact

On an international level, there has been a considerable interest to bring improvements in the healthcare industry’s safety, quality, cost-effectiveness, and cleanliness through telemedicine. McLean conducted a study to investigate and analyze the impact of telemedicine on the quality and safety of the healthcare. It was revealed that the improvement in the quality of life of patients was apparent. Also, improvements were observed in patients of asthma and chronic heart failure (McLean, Sheikh, Cresswell, Nurmatov, Mukherjee, Hemmi, & Pagliari, 2013).

Telenursing

Information technology usage has actually evolved the nursing roles specifically within home settings. Telehealth nursing or telenursing is focused on patients’ long-term physical wellness and self-management. It can be said that telemedicine has empowered the present-day nurses with a better ability to supervise, gather data, inform, follow-up, and offer multidisciplinary care comprising of pain management, distant involvements, and family support. According to a report, “agencies using telehealth have an average patient-to-nurse ratio of 15:1, as compared with non-telehealth agencies having a ratio of 11:1” (Bashir & Bastola, 2018). Consequently, a remarkable difference could be made if telemedicine is effectively used for the provision of patient care to underserved regions experiencing nursing shortage and inaccessible health care.

Nursing and Telemedicine

The lack of specialists in rural areas results in a majority of patients being devoid of well-timed health care interventions. This gap could be easily filled up if more and more home health agencies with telemedicine facilities train their nurses to care for chronic patients while utilizing ICTs. Such provision of care and sense of security allows the nurses to intervene and manage patient condition under expert physician care (Bashir & Bastola, 2018).

Nurse Informatics Uses

As indicated by the above discussion, there is a rare involvement of hands-on patient care in nursing informatics. As an alternative, nurses make use of technologies and tools to assess the patients’ progress via telemedicine. For instance, blood glucose, blood pressure, and heart rate and other vital signs are recorded and evaluated by using tools. Such equipment is usually set up in the domestic setting wherein the patient is placed. The nurse informaticists educate the patients and their family members about the usage of equipment and how to troubleshoot them if a technical issue arises. Similarly, professionals engaged in nurse informatics also facilitate other health care personnel to use telemedicine and other related equipment in a proper manner.

It needs to be noted here that not every nurse is aware of the recent methods and technologies used in telemedicine. A patient whose treatment involves telemedicine cannot be just evaluated by any nurse. Instead, a nursing trained in nursing informatics and knows how specific technologies are used can help in taking care of the populations treated under the umbrella of ICTs. However, telemedicine nurses are necessitated to possess the same nursing skills that are a prerequisite for all nurses whereby “excellent organization, critical thinking and communication skills are required also, but the most important skill is to understand the technology and its potential and limitations, and have the intuitiveness in how to utilize it to provide the care needed at the time” (Page, 2013). Therefore, nurses interested in using technology to provide high-quality health care must obtain a nursing informatics certification to start with.

Telemedicine Counseling

Telemedicine counseling also helped in reducing the maternal fatigue affecting mothers who had infants with difficult behaviors. Parents who had infants with extremely low birth weight rates were also provided with emotional support and education. Overall, telemedicine resulted in patient satisfaction whereby it reduced cost and travel time along with increased convenience. In a Canadian review of various telemedicine programs, the rural areas had higher patient satisfaction as compared to the urban areas. In comparison to waiting for longer personal counseling, 76% people preferred telemedicine counseling due to its ease and convenience (Breen & Matusitz, 2009).

Telemedicine Knowledge in US

In developed countries, such as the United States of America, the healthcare industry has incorporated telemedicine. Even though several issues have popped up with the implementation in different states including legality problems and reimbursement, it is extremely important for developing countries to learn with USA example and incorporate telemedicine by means of volunteer efforts in the regions where healthcare professionals are unable to reach. Both governments and stakeholders need to ensure that telemedicine must replace the obsolete alternatives to treat populations in far-away regions.

Criticism on Telemedicine

Even though telemedicine is gaining popularity on a large scale, criticism concerned with the quality of care received through telemedicine has also surfaced. According to the opponents of telemedicine, various barriers hinder the growth of telemedicine in some regions including developing countries considering the inadequacy of the infrastructure for proper utilization of the modern Internet technologies. Also, the instability of the electric power supplies, unreliable connectivity of the Internet, computer viruses, and limited availability of bandwidth hinder the adoption of telemedicine (Breen & Matusitz, 2009).

Financial Cost

In addition, the financial cost associated with telemedicine is also a major barrier to the adoption and application of telemedicine services. Training cost, equipment, maintenance, and transportation expenses can be difficult to be managed for developing and underdeveloped countries. The application of telemedicine is also restricted due to lack of knowledge, resources, and local skills. In many countries, the education required to be a competent nursing informatics professional is not available.

Conclusion

Today, the big promises have started to materialize while telemedicine is being implemented to its full potential. The swiftness of deliverance of health care services and increase in the number of nursing informatics professionals, it has become crystal clear that people could not be treated in hospitals alone; the Internet connections, modified insurance standards, availability and cheap usage of smart phones as well as technologically-aware nursing personnel are changing the conventional modes of delivering health care services.

It has been proved that information and communication technologies like cell phones, the Internet, and computers have the propensity to address the health problems on a global level. It can be done through the deliverance of nursing and health services via telemedicine. Telemedicine contributes in improving the as the health care situation and physical wellbeing of deprived populations in remote areas when health care professionals use ICTs for an exchange of the information for diagnosis, treatment, and provision of education to nursing staff and health care providers (though in limited numbers) in such areas. Similarly, the healthcare’s safety, quality, cost-effectiveness, and cleanliness have considerably enhanced worldwide through telemedicine. Though there are various hindrances to the application of telemedicine in developing countries, a focused approach towards its implementation may result in miraculous outcomes for poor nations as the health of the local people is improved.

With certain challenges such as limited coverage by insurers, diagnosing difficulties, and privacy issues, telemedicine is evolving with each passing day. The fact that remote areas have no access to healthcare facilities as well as the increasing aged population signifies that telemedicine will flourish in the future despite the mentioned challenges. One cannot simply ignore the advantages of telemedicine. In this regard, healthcare professionals can play a major role “through the development of strategic, industrywide best practices and regulations” along with the preservation of patient-nurse and patient-physician relationships (“How Will Telemedicine Impact the Future of Health Care”? 2016)

References

Bashir, A., & Bastola, D. R. (2018, May 25). Perspectives of Nurses Toward Telehealth Efficacy and Quality of Health Care: Pilot Study. Retrieved April 11, 2019, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5993972/

Breen, G., & Matusitz, J. (2009). An Evolutionary Examination of Telemedicine: A Health and Computer-Mediated Communication Perspective. Social Work in Public Health, 25(1), 59-71. doi:10.1080/19371910902911206

Darkins, A. W., & Cary, M. A. (2000). Telemedicine and Telehealth: Principles, Policies, Performances and Pitfalls. New York: Springer Publishing Company.

How Will Telemedicine Impact the Future of Health Care? (2016, November 03). Nursing@Georgetown. Retrieved April 11, 2019, from https://online.nursing.georgetown.edu/blog/future-of-telemedicine/

McLean, S., Sheikh, A., Cresswell, K., Nurmatov, U., Mukherjee, M., Hemmi, A., & Pagliari, C. (2013). The impact of telehealthcare on the quality and safety of care: a systematic overview. PloS one, 8(8), e71238. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0071238

The post Nursing Informatics and Uses of Telemedicine appeared first on Mark8ng.com.