Electronic Health Records and Healthcare Administration Response
While being employed in the long term care setting, I understand that possessing of the basic computer skills is essential for improvement of the operations efficiency. Fingerprint access to the Medication Administration Records is proposed as the information technology initiative as the facilitator of the time saving and security improvement during the access to the medical information.
According to the T.I.G.E.R. (2011) the basic computer competencies in the security field include understanding that the password and user name are needed to guarantee the identification of the employee when logging on to various information system in the medical entity, in particular start working on the PC, entering the Electronic Health Records system. Moreover, the nurses should be aware of the key rules of keeping high level of security during the access to the medical histories of the patients: do not share the passwords, to change them regularly, to set the passwords that will have adequate length and mix of letters and numbers. At the next generation of the access to the data, the proposed implementation of the fingerprint access to the Medical Administration Records will facilitate the security as well as productivity level of the healthcare entity’s operations.
The first reason is the fact, that the procedure of the fingerprint samples gathering will be executed once. There will be no necessity to change the password, and to remember it. There will be no need to spend valuable time to restore password if the nurse will forget it. The second reason is that the access time will be shortened due to the physical access to the medical records of the patient without entering the login and password. The other essential benefit of this new information technology initiative is that there will be no need for extensive educational sessions. Each nurse will be able to open the confidential medical records after the one-time physical training.
The potential barrier that can arise during the implementation is the high cost of the equipment for such security system. It is also possible that nurses will doubt whether their personal fingerprints will not be used in fraudulent activities. The IT specialists as well as the equipment setup specialists should inform the medical staff about the confidentiality of any private records not only for the patients and their medical histories but regarding any staff member. According to Caballero Muñoz and Hullin Lucay Cossio (2010) it will be the part of the risk management procedures. Risk management includes manner risks’ identification and analysis within the particular health informatics project. The identification of the risks is followed by risks prioritization, taking preventive measures as well as establishment of the respond control approach to the indentified risks.
As it is stated by Liaw and Gray (2010) during any information technology implementation it is necessary to conduct cost-benefit analysis. In the case of the fingerprint access to the Medication Administration Records, the costs of implementation will be high. However, this informative technology initiative will be the …
