At my first job in a clinical setting, I was a part of a task of going from a paper yester too paperless system. Back in 2007, the need to flip through bulky patient charts and deciphering scribbled hand writing from various people would be a thing of the past for SSL Plasma's Wichita, KS center. The implementation of prepares was a nationwide, multimillion dollar project that promised to save money and time whilst improving patient care. prepares is a modular, stand-alone blood bank transfusion service software application that is specially designed to meet the needs of collecting blood, plasma, platelets, cord blood and/or transfusion services organizations to aid/assist qualified and trained personnel to support the major operations within their facilities" ("prepares 501(k) summary," ). PROGRESS included modules to enable users to manage the following capacities, but not limited to: donation collection management, donor management, laboratory testing, Inventory management, quality control management, consumable management, equipment management, sample storage, deferrals management, standard operating procedure management, report management, and billing. AAAS very impressed after my personal experience with this system.
The use of this technology TLD necessarily save time, but it certainly was Impressive with the traceability it provided and improved patient safety by alerting the care giver of any allergies the patient has and the amount of plasma a person could donate, for example, you certainly wouldn't want a 110 pound person to donate the same amount a 300 pound person would donate. Electronic Medical Records (Emirs) Is a system "designed to capture and re- present data that accurately capture the state of the patient at all times" ("Electronic medical record," ).Learning about the EMMER system in a hospital setting as part of his class and with the use of Practice Fusion, enabled me to understand the evolution of technology over the years and how patient Information Is much more secure than it is with the use of paper documents. Worrying about catastrophic events such as a fire, tornado, hurricane, etc. Is becoming less of a concern because of the security features that comes with EMMER and storing this data offset.
Although it was not a perfect system, I certainly saw the Impact of greater quality and safety In At my current place of employment, we rely heavily on the ability to scan physician 1 OFF We have recently transitioned from a long, manual process of scanning, to Optical Character Recognition (OCCUR) software. "OCCUR is the process of turning a picture of words (such as a scan of a typed letter) into an editable document that you can open and use in your desktop publishing software, word processor, or other text editor" (Bear).Our reason for this conversion into OCCUR is the ability for the system to read each requisition form by recognizing the unique barded identifier and parsing out this form so users can search for this document instead of opening the folder the acquisition would be in and searching through hundreds of pages to find that one requisition form being searched for. I have been auditing 25% of these OCCUR files, from January 1, 2013 to present, and the errors are minimal. My department is also responsible for auditing 10% of specimens that are processed in our toxicology laboratory.
It has certainly decreased the time spent Just from searching for the random requisition forms used in the audit. Below is a graphical representation of the impact the audit has had on quality and process improvement: The next graph shows the increasing trend of the number of samples being audited after collaboration with the IT department in querying daily reports: As you can translate from examining the two graphs, the number of samples audited has increased greatly, thanks to the ability to query reports in order to save time in selecting random samples.I have been fighting for a strong document control software system since the start of my career in Quality Assurance at Forensic Laboratories. The previous laboratories I worked in used document control software, which I now understand, has saved any hours and greatly simplified a system that is difficult to manage manually.
Unfortunately I am forced to keep a manual document control system at my current company until we receive funds in a budget for next year.To provide some background on Forensic Laboratories' document control; there were some Standard Operating Procedures (Sops) written but maintained horribly. No one was made point person to keep track of when SOPs were ready for lab director review and revision history was never tracked. It took a lot of time for me to create a manageable system that is understood by every department.
The investment of time in training staff and creating a traceable system has shown its positive impact when training new members of staff and the ease of having a standard template that all in-house SOPs must have.My desire for document control software is to decrease the hours invested to Just maintain the system and increasing the turnaround time (TAT) to have SOPs available to staff that is current with all procedures. At my previous Jobs, I was never charged with authoring or revising sops; I have many years of experience from being on the technical side as a technical lead and training coordinator. Currently, I am on the opposite side where I am responsible for authoring, revising, and assisting all departments on understanding a system that would be easy for everyone.
I believe that the small investment made for a document control system will have a positive impact for a large corporation such as the one that I work for. Another item I desire at my current Job is electronic signature capability. My managers' review, make notes and edits within a partition that I call the "SOP Drive". This SOP drive houses all currently in-use SOPs in its PDF version, documents that are being authored, and documents that are in review. It also houses the .
Co version of all sops; although, I am the only one who can access the editable . Doc versions. This is to insure that SQ has control over who has access to which documents and can track who is responsible for edits and content. The approval process involves much collaboration by sending emails to let other approving managers and the lab director know when review is complete and when the final document is ready for Quality Assurance (SQ) to route for signatures.
Once I get the final approval that a document is complete, I print out the SOP, route it to all approving managers for them to sign, can the signature page, and replace the blank signature page that is saved in the PDF version with the scanned signature page that is filled out with original signatures. It is a very cumbersome process but it is a document control system that works for our facility. Robotics in surgery has been very fascinating to me over the years, especially since I have never worked in a hospital setting.The robotic arm is used to assist the surgeon during surgery, not perform surgery independently of the physician; which is a wide misconception. The most interesting thing about modern robotic-assisted urge is that the robotic arm is able to guide surgical tools far more precisely than even the most highly trained human surgeon.
"The human hand is not as steady as the robotic arm, and robotic-assisted devices, such as the ROI, can perform the same actions over and over with perfect accuracy. This consistency and precision mean that implants are much longer lasting" ("Robotics in surgery," ). The $1. 7 million machines have performed more than a million procedures in the last decade.
Advocates say that they produce less scarring, minimize blood loss and contribute to shorter recovery periods. Some doctors who operate them say that its displays give them a better view or the surgical site and enable them to work with greater precision" (Ferguson, March). It is becoming more and more common to see physicians and nurses using their phone or pad APS to aid them as they perform their Jobs.Indeterminacies. Com lists some interesting uses the phone has in healthcare such as the phone functioning as an outscore, an FDA approved EGG reader, a microscope, a Gloucester, a dermatomes, a smartened ultrasound, a Petri dish, a slit lamp, a blood pressure monitor and a breathalyzer (Bennett, December). Although many healthcare providers find the use of cell phones and tablets are a useful tool for business as well as personal use, I have always been concerned about breaches of HAIFA and privacy.
The Chief Compliance Officer (CO) at Forensic Laboratories asks that all employees who has their work emails sent to their personal phones to enable a postcode or lock so that information does not get into the wrong hands if the device is ever misplaced or stolen. This Healthcare Information Systems class has been very educational and instrumental to my current Job. It's evident that technology is giving the health care industry an assured focus that help patients live healthier lives and aid health care providers with daily tasks while providing the best quality care.
