NSG 3039 Week 2 Project: Information Management and Technology

Week 2 Project: Information and Technology Management

Patient safety environment is critical in effective and quality care provision. Healthcare providers and professionals can leverage the ever-transforming health technology to enhance a safer patient environment. One area that they can use to impact change is informatics. Leveraging technology tools like smart watches for care delivery purposes will allow providers and organizations to improve patient safety by reducing the prevalence of medical errors and increasing positive response to patient’s needs and concerns during their stay in hospitals (King & Sarrafzadeh, 2017). As such, this change proposal paper describes the change proposal to incorporate the new technology and how it will impact patient safety, be assessed, be communicated to staff and implemented. The proposal also addresses human factors associated with change and resistance to change.

Impact Patient Safety

Different studies demonstrate that use of smartwatches as a form of wearable technology can enhance patient safety and care in different ways. In their paper, Ali and Ali (2010) conduct a study on the effects of a smartwatch-based communication system in nursing homes. The findings of their study show that the technology can improve communication between the caregivers and residents which leads to a reduction in staff response time and improves the safety of the resident. The study notes that the system also reduced perceived workload by 50% among nursing assistants, and 40% in time response to bedroom call lights and bed exit alarms by 29%. Further, these devices have a huge potential to improve monitoring and care delivery as advanced by Bove (2019) in her article. Bove posits that wearables can offer data and automatic analytics that can assist nurse practitioners diagnose issues faster and intervene sooner to prevent adverse events and even readmissions.

In their systematic review, Jensen et al. (2021) observe that wearables like smartwatches lead to increased health awareness, democratization of health data and better patient engagement. Therefore, this technology will impact patient safety as it will improve their engagement, allow nurses to take vitals and chart them, and improve their response to any events that include potential falls. Nurses have several tasks like turning bedbound patients periodically, monitoring and titrating drips and assessing the neurological status of chronically ill patients. The use of these watches would ensure that nurses address all aspects of safety care provision and become more efficient. They will feel reduced workload and respond fast to any concerns raised by patients.

Measuring to Assess the Impact of Change

The proposed use of nursing smartwatches would have significant impact in the clinical practice if implemented effectively. However, the need to ascertain outcome measures of its impact will require use of an effective change model among the nurse practitioners and the organization’s management. In this case, the proposed project would apply a change model like Kotter’s change approach or Lewin’s change theory. Using Kotter’s change model, the stakeholder will need to ensure that they undertake a comprehensive process to integrate the use of smartwatches.

The assessment of the effectiveness of the watch will entail reviewing, measuring, and evaluating the present practices. Through this approach, the proposed change implementers will evaluate the current safety measures and events and compare the outcomes after collecting data on how patients will be getting treatment and responding to their calls and concerns. The team would then introduce the Nurse Watch after providing education on its working and overall benefits to the facility. The team will then offer the watch to the staff and the nurse educator help them understand its practical functionality and use it in their shifts for one month. After the period, the team will evaluate the measures used in reviewing the previous practices to assess the effectiveness of the watch and the changes it brings on patient safety. Through the data and its results, the team will validate the use of the Nurse Watch to enhance patient safety in the facility.

Kotter’s eight step change process model implores change implementers to create urgency for change, form powerful coalition, create a change vision, communicate the vision, remove obstacles, create short-term wins, build on the change, and anchoring it as part of organizational culture. As such, the success of the impact of the proposed change will be evaluated using Kotter’s eight step model where attaining short-terms and building on the changes would be critical (Liu et al., 2018). The implication is that outcome measures will demonstrate if nurse practitioners are responding fast to patient calls, bedside alarms, and if they are leveraging data to make informed care decisions in relation to patient condition. Further, the impact of the change would be assessed based on feedback from patients, caregivers, families, and the inter-professional and multidisciplinary teams that will be working alongside nurses in their practice settings.

Communicating and Implementation of Change

Change implementation requires adoption of an effective model or framework to ensure that stakeholder have sufficient and clear communication from change leaders and the management. Communicating change requires change leaders and management to ensure that stakeholders understand the urgency for change, and create vision and disseminate it to the rest for effective implementation (Liu et al., 2018). In this case, the change leader would disseminate the information on the need to use smartwatch and why it is being introduced. Nurses will be educated on its working and the benefits that it offers in patient safety.

The team will ensure increased and effective participation and collection of views from nurses on how the technology can be suited to their unique needs and patient concerns to enhance overall satisfaction and quality care delivery. As advanced by McGonigle et al. (2018) getting nurses to participate and be involved in change is critical to attaining its goals and objectives. Using Kotter’s model, the change leaders would create a guiding coalition to persuade others to adopt the new practice. The coalition will have nurse director, a nurse educator, resource nurse, and senior clinical and bedside nurses who will be committed to using smartwatches to enhance overall safety and care delivery in the facility.

Human Factors Related to Change and Resistance to Change

Human factors impact the ability to implement change in healthcare environment. As outlined by different change implementation models, including Kotter’s model, it is important to understand that change will involve people and their participation, ideas, and support are critical to attaining the intended goals. As illustrated, human factors like resistance to new practices and the need to preserve status quo will impact change in this proposal (McGonigle et al., 2018). Therefore, the change leaders would need to create a change coalition based on Kotter’s model to convince others, especially those skeptics, to accept the new practice. The change leaders would need effective communication and increased engagement with all providers in different organizational units to initiate and attain the change objectives.

Conclusion

Change can be a slow process and face increased resistance. However, change leaders can implement new practices when they use the most appropriate change model and focus on improving organizational processes. In this case, the use of smartwatch by nurses in health care facilities will enhance patient safety and increase satisfaction. Further, it will allow nurse practitioners to attain better performance and respond effective to their work demands.

References

Ali, H. & Ali, H. (2019). Evaluating a smartwatch notification system in a simulated nursing

home. International Journal of Older People Nursing, 14(1):e12241. DOI:10.1111/opn.12241

Bove, L. A. (2019). Increasing Patient Engagement Through the Use of Wearable Technology.

The Journal for Nurse Practitioner, 15(8): 535-539. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nurpra.2019.03.018

Jensen, M. T., Treskes, R. W., Caiani, E. G., Casado-Arroyo, R., Cowie, M. R., Dilaveris, P., …

& Lumens, J. (2021). ESC working group on e-cardiology position paper: use of commercially available wearable technology for heart rate and activity tracking in primary and secondary cardiovascular prevention—in collaboration with the European Heart Rhythm Association, European Association of Preventive Cardiology, Association of Cardiovascular Nursing and Allied Professionals, Patient Forum, and the Digital Health Committee. European Heart Journal-Digital Health, 2(1), 49-59.

King, C. E. & Sarrafzadeh, M. (2017). A Survey of Smartwatches in Remote Health Monitoring.

Journal of Healthcare Informatics Research, 2(1-2):1-24. DOI: 10.1007/s41666-017-0012-7

Liu, J., YE, J., Wang, L., Ding, Y., & Liu, X. (2019). Practice of” Disease-Characteristics

Nursing Quality Improvement” Program based on Kotter’s change model. Chinese Journal of Practical Nursing, 867-872.

McGonigle, D. & Mastrian, K. (2018). Nursing Informatics and the Foundation of Knowledge

(4th ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

  Please use course text book reference for South University online.  Instructions Change Proposal In a Microsoft Word document of 4-5 pages formatted in APA style, develop a change proposal for a new technology that will contribute to a safer patient environment. In your paper address each of the following criteria:  Describe how the change proposal for the new technology will: impact patient safety. be measured to assess the impact of your change. be communicated to staff and implemented. Examine human factors related to change and resistance to change. On a separate references page, cite all sources using APA format. Helpful APA guides and resources are available in the South University Online Library. Below are guides that are located in the library and can be accessed and downloaded via the South University Online Citation Resources: APA Style page. The American Psychological Association website also provides detailed guidance on formatting, citations, and references at APA Style. • APA Citation Helper • APA Citations Quick Sheet • APA-Style Formatting Guidelines for a Written Essay • Basic Essay Template  Please note that the title and reference pages should not be included in the total page count of your paper.  Submissions Details: Name your document SU_NSG3039_W2_Project_LastName_FirstInitial.doc. Submit your document to the Submissions Area by the due date assigned.