E-Health Initiatives: Importance, Strategies and Competency for Nurses

This assignment sheds light on the various aspects of e-health technologies, including personal reflection, importance in healthcare industry, strategies for nurses to develop competency in handling e-health technology and managing patient care.

Running head: E-HEALTH INITIATIVES
E-HEALTH INITIATIVES
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Introduction:
According to world health organization, e-health can be expalined as the uses of the
digital technology for treating patients, conducting researches, educating students as well as
tracking disorders and monitoring public health. The healthcare services are highly dependent on
the information as well as knowledge (Lau et al., 2018). Digital technology which is present in
the shape of information and communication technology (ICT) is seen to constitute a vital as
well as integrated part of healthcare and its utilization would ultimately increase both in the
future mainly in that of direct form of care as well as in communication taking place between
different stakeholders and even different types of organizations, along with that of
administration, quality improvement and research. E-health technology would help in facilitating
transfer as well as handling and storage of the data and also for supporting clinical decisions and
then facilitating care from the distance (De Veer et al., 2015). This assignment will mainly try to
shed more light on the various aspects of e-health technologies. It will include a personal
reflection about an incident where I realized the importance of this facility in healthcare wards.
This would be followed by detailed description about its importance in the healthcare industry
and then the various strategies that can be undertaken by nurses to develop their competency in
the handling e-health technology and managing patient care.
Personal self-reflection:
The first stage is called the description stage where the event that needs to be reflected on
is discussed in details. During the time of placement, I had to treat huge number of patients with
multi-morbid conditions. Treatment of huge number of disorders was found to be highly
complicated as the patient not only required constant monitoring and care services but extensive

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documentations and after-discharge services and monitoring were also required. It was during
this time, I understood the importance of undertaking e-health initiatives.
The next stage is called the feelings stage. While caring for the patients with co-morbid
chronic disorders, I used to feel stressed as well as fatigued. I was not being able to understand
how to simplify my work and prevent myself from feeling burned out. I used to feel extremely
disappointed when I was not able to manage the huge pressure and demand of the patients.
The next stage is called the evaluation stage. The presence of the multiple chronic
conditions is intricately associated with different types of poor clinical outcomes that include
more rapid functional decline as well as increase in the rate of the mortality and re-
hospitalization. Many of the researchers are of the opinion that these outcomes actually remain
as a part of the function of substantial self-management as well as the coordination of different
barriers that can be found to when patients suffer from different multiple health issues (Nelson &
Staggers, 2016). One of the studies has shown that people with multiple chronic disorders are
frequently seen to face unwieldy medication regimes as well as different daily self-care routines.
These might result in reduction of their adherence to the recommended treatment plans. The need
of tracking and coordinating health information from different healthcare providers and
monitoring and distinguishing between the different symptoms for different disorders also
become important for the service users (Kirschner et al., 2017). Therefore, there seems to be a
great need for the different types of effective tools for supporting the different self-care activities
that associate with multiple health issues. I have realized that because of management of such
patients, e-health technologies would prove to be beneficial for simplifying the work pressure of
nurses and enhancing the care quality service of patients.

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The next stage is the analysis phase. Venot et al. (2015) is of the opinion that one source
of potential form of the disease self-management as well as health care navigation support is the
eHealth technology. This is mainly seen to comprise of a wide range of patient-facing tools that
incorporates information technology and ensures engagement of patients in their healthcare. .
These are seen to include the personal health records as well as web-based disorder management
programs and different telehealth devices which contain applications delivering health related
services and information via technologies of telecommunication (Walker et al., 2017). They also
include secure messaging applications as well as other health related mobile applications.
Nursing healthcare professionals can now encourage patients with different chronic conditions to
increase the utilization of the e-health technologies to develop self-management capabilities.
They are also seen to refer patients to following online resources as primary sources of
information. These are seen to augment the self-care activities of the patients by improving
organization, providing information as well as enhancing communication (Westra et al., 2015).
Patients using these resources report increase health-related knowledge and also is seen to
include greater sense of empowerment for improving their health. Thereby, I feel that the
excessive stress and burden faced by nurses in caring and educating patient with multiple chronic
conditions, monitoring them, making repeated appointments, documenting their information and
others have become much easier with lessened pressure on healthcare resources.
The next stage is conclusion stage. I have developed the knowledge that incorporation of
e-health initiatives in practice and developing skills for handling e-health technologies would
help in simplification of not only the practices and care services towards patients with multiple
chronic conditions but would also help in reducing chances of burnouts of nurses and even save

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healthcare resources. Therefore, I would need to develop the skills and knowledge of handling e-
health technologies for efficient care services.
The next stage is the action stage. I would attend workshops and training sessions on e-
health technologies management successfully. I would also follow evidence based practices to be
aware of the recent trends in e-health technology implementation and care services so that I can
provide the best care services to patients.
Evaluation:
The significance of recording accurate information of the patient has long been identified
as one of the basic principles of effective healthcare. Documenting the information of the
patients along with the details of intervention provided, medication administered along with the
different monitoring of the data done – all need to be documented in detailed manner for
effective delegation and storage of patient data for future (Page et al., 2018). Electronic health
records are a form of e-health technology that helps in sufficing the above mentioned
responsibilities successfully. E-health can help by supporting healthcare procedures that help in
ensuring quality, patient-safety as well as person centered care approaches and continuity in the
care procedures. Nurses need to be frequently engaged in coordinating functions in the
organization that among the various types of things include handling of the health-related
information. Researchers are of the opinion that this information need to be available in the right
type of the format as well as on the right occasion and that mainly to the right person in the care
process as a basis of for decision-making as well as provision and evaluation of healthcare
(Wong et al., 2016). Healthcare advisors are of the opinion that one of the most important pre-
requisite for e-health for developing in that direction and meeting the care needs of the patients,

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nursing professionals should contribute with their commitment and knowledge irrespective of
their roles.
Studies have found that illegible handwriting has been one of the most important sources
of different types of medication errors. 60% of the medication errors in the healthcare centers
were because of poor handwriting. This error can be easily eliminated if electronic health records
are utilized. Managing medications through that of HER also is seen to improve patient
outcomes over time. EHR helps by reducing adverse drug events by 52%. They are designed
with bar code technologies (Taylor et al., 2015). If a nurse scans the wrong medication, an alert
will be seen to pop up and this would alert nurses about the problem. Critical lab values when
incorporated in the HER can help by flagging each critical value for clinical professionals
making notifications simpler for nursing professionals. It also reminds the nurses when to repeat
the lab tests again for specific patients. It also helps nurses and healthcare centers by reducing
the number of the duplicate tests and improvement of the overall efficiency of the care services
provided to patients.
Telehealth has been found to rapidly growing e-health technologies. One of the main
benefits is that it has been found to reduce the cost of healthcare as well as increase the
efficiency through the effective management of chronic disorders as well as shred health
professional staffing. It also reduces travel time and fewer or shorter hospital stays. Secondly, it
has also helped in improving access particularly to patients who stay in remote areas and rural
areas where shortages of professionals are found (Seaman et al., 2017). The nurses can be seen to
provide care and monitor the health of vulnerable chronic disorder patients and guide them and
family members to undertake care strategies that help him develop quality of life event when
they cannot visit for follow-ups. Third, studies have also shown that quality of healthcare

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services delivered via telemedicine are as good as traditional in-person consultations with greater
outcomes and patient satisfaction in specifically mental care services and ICU services.
Apart from the above mentioned e-health technologies, others which have also gained
fame are electronic medical records, health IT systems and consumer health It data and even
virtual healthcare. Mobile health or m-Health and big data systems are also found to help nurses
by simplifying their jobs and enhancing quality care of the patients (Park & Kim, 2017). They
reduce the pressure of patient demands and also decrease the healthcare expenditure by few
folds.
Strategies for practice:
All nurses require e-health competence so that they can offer patients as well as
significant others in providing high quality care. Therefore, e-health informatics are included in
their bachelor and master degree nursing education courses and they should leniently go through
the sections and learn from them as well as the classes held by lecturers to develop deep insight
and skills. Digital learning environments like that of the virtual skills training centers as well as
the different applications constituting important support functions for learning as well as safe
care. Studies are of the opinion that digital technology can facilitate learning that is adapted to
the individual nurse in terms of content, place as well as time (Nami et al., 2017).
Nursing professionals have the personal responsibilities in keeping themselves updated
on the development of their nursing knowledge that would include e-health. For doing so, they
would need the access of the research based knowledge in the different forms of the databases as
well as various support documents like that of national guidelines which are linked with
electronic patient record system (Hopia et al., 2015).

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Nursing professionals need to have knowledge as well as understanding of the digital
technology while providing high quality care srevices by means of e-health services mainly on
about how different types of digital technologies influence human interaction. The professionals
need to provide service users with professional guidance about the system of online health
information (al-Huneti et al., 2016). Nurses who have sufficient competence can only
successfully contribute to improvement of the information provided to patients and thereby
enhance the opportunities of their involvement in their own care.
There is a need for every nurse to adopt critical model of thinking. Such nurses would be
able to carry out various evaluations of the existing digital support systems thereby formulating
demands for the development of e-health in nursing (Van et al., 2016). For developing such
critical thinking skills, nurses can join workshops, attend seminars, solve more case study based
assignments, interview experienced professionals and thus gain wide range of information about
the services.
Conclusion:
In the present generation, individuals living with multiple chronic ailments are increasing
in numbers. This is resulting huge work pressure on the nurses due to increased demands of
healthcare services that include care services, documentations of each services and interventions,
discharge education to patients , follow-ups and many other associated with services. All these
result in huge burden on nurses and in such instances e-health services like electronic health
records, mobile health, telehealth, virtual It centers and many others are found to be extremely
important in meeting such demands and providing quality care to patients. Nurses also need to

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develop strategies by which they can develop the competency, skill and knowledge of e-health
and thereby reach the zenith of success.

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