Introduction
The electronic health record (EHR) has currently become popular due to effectiveness and efficiency associated with it in provision of health care services. This technology creates a support system that serves as a source of evidence, thus providing quality management of patients’ information and care (Ball 204). More so, the support system helps the health practitioners to come up with a credible diseases’ surveillance report. The purpose of this paper is to come up with training materials that identify and describe the steps that must be taken to develop a plan for selection and implementation of an electronic health record.
Background
The health care workers have an obligation of keeping a wide range of information pertaining to their clients [patients]. This health information is critical since it serves the role of monitoring the patients’ health status such as the clinical progression and the results of the diagnosis tests. More so, this information helps to explain the patients’ heath status to the next caregiver either in the same health care setting or in another health care facility. Using paper work in conveying such information is ineffective since it is vulnerable to errors that normally emanate from handwriting, wrong prescriptions of drugs, and billing errors, among other factors.
Manual for Change
Common barriers to institutional changes can be avoided by employing training materials that identify and describe the steps that must be taken in developing a plan for implementation of EHR. The training materials will facilitate acquisition of basic skills of using electronic health record, acquisition of EHR professional skills, and acquisition of proficient skills for training new health care workers on EHR.
Step 1: Acquiring the Basic Skills of Using Electronic Health Record by Using an Ordinary Computer
The project directors are responsible for dispensing adequate basic skills in using an EHR. The basic knowledge will include exercising comprehensive knowledge on computer skills: typing speed, avoiding typing errors, and ease of perusing the website. This assessment should be done using an ordinary computer since a new computer model takes considerable time to adjust to it, hence end up scaring some workers. Tailored training of these basic skills must then be offered with regard to each worker’s area of weakness.
Step 2: Acquiring EHR Professional Skills through Using Health Care Ethical Principles Materials
This step necessitates acquiring comprehensive knowledge on questions related to health care procedures. Since the goal of an EHR is to enhance the patients’ care, every clinical staff member should be able to know the number of times that he/she is required to update patients’ information (Ball 204). The billing department, on the other hand, should be able to know how to handle patients’ information and how the system works in relation to the billing process. In addition, all the health care workers should be able to distinguish the changes emanating from workflow from the changes emanating from the implementation of EHR (205).
Step 3: Acquiring Skills for Training New Health Care Workers on EHR through Using Tailored Software
The electronic health record coordinator will ensure that all the staff members receive adequate knowledge for training new employees. Skills acquisition can only be achieved through demonstrating how EHR functions and teaching on how patients’ information should be collected. This will be acquired effectively through using demo software, as it will help the healthcare workers to experiment on all areas of the system without fear of loosing any information related to the patients or the administration.
Conclusion
Breaking down this training into three steps and using the relevant material is of paramount importance since the health care workers will be able to substantiate the benefits and obstacles involved in implementing an EHR. An effective training manual calls for timely detection of the factors that facilitate clear translations of results.
Works Cited
Ball, Marion. Nursing Informatics: Where Technology and Caring Meet. London: Springer, 2010. Print.