Data Capture Technology

Answer

Week 4

Topic: Data Capture Technology

Structured data is consistent data that resides in predefined data fields. Patient demographic information is an example of a structured data in Electronic Health Records (EHR) system that is easy to capture and categorize in the database. On the other hand, unstructured data is unorganized data that may be associated with irregularities and ambiguity. Unstructured data are often expressed in writing (text) or in picture and difficult to classified into specific data fields. An example of unstructured data in EHR is surgery reports, which describes the details of all the surgeries that have been performed. Unstructured data is often described in medical and/or social history in patient reports contained in EHR systems (Scheurwegs et al., 2016).

Discrete data also refers to structured data. In EHR discrete data is the data than can be analysed by the computer. Examples of discrete data include length of hospital stays and hospital deaths. The computer can pull or process individual pieces of discrete information. Discrete data can be compared with other structured data sets to give important information (HealthcareITskills, 2017). On the other hand, free-text data is structured data in the form of words and sentences. This is the data that is put in email program or word processor program. In EHR free-text data include drug names such as amoxicillin.  Another example of free text data is information that is communicated by different healthcare providers in emails. Free-text data may provide complete information or descriptions that may have been impossible with the use of structured data. However, it is often difficult to retrieve and analyse in a computational manner the free text data (Kaya et al., 2018).

Stress management interventions and provision of support system will help resolve the tress among coders associated with the use of the new workflow system.

Topic: Case Study - Change is Hard!

The key challenges observed after implementation of the workflow technology with an imaging system is that there is resistance to its use from the coders and that the system was put in place without proper training of staff on how to use it. The fundamental rationale of installing and implementing the use of the workflow technology was to simply and ease processing of workflows but as it turns out now, the it has led to staff stress and perhaps resistance. The plan to improve the situation is through staff training; especially proper training of coders, stress management for the affected staff, and establishment of a support system.

The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) (2018) affirms that staff training on document imaging technology is a necessity since the technology acts as a bridge to the establishment of EHR. The staff should acknowledge the fundamental need of establishing this system. The coders should appreciate the new system since it will facilitate entry or retrieval of information from the EHR. The system can supplement or eliminate the use of paper-based documents in the organisation. In other words the training will focus on helping the staff acquire the skills on how to use the system in a comfortable manner as well as help them realize the benefits that may be realized with the use of the new system. One of the benefits is the new workflow system will facilitate availability of simultaneous and timely patient information to multiple care givers, which may help improve patient safety. Another benefit is that the integrity of the medical records will be assured since patient reports will be easily routed for signatures and charts will be easily routed for dictation. In addition, the new workflow system will ensure realization of substantive reimbursements for the organization and individual physicians according to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (AHIMA, 2018).

Planned training should be thorough. First of all, the staff should be trained on how to scan information contained in paper-based documents into the document imaging system. In Secondly, the training should focus on helping the staff on how to stored digital or electronic information in the EHR system. Lastly, but not the least, training process should help the staff to learn on how to access and retrieve coded or stored information in an information system such as the EHR system. Storage and retrieval of information stored in EHRs is cumbersome and complicated; hence, proper training is necessary (AHIMA, 2018). This may be the cause of the observed stress among the coders.

Change in this case has resulted in work stress. The new system is evidently a job stressor. Therefore, a support system should allow the staff to communicate their concerns and challenges in which they do experience as they use the new system. The perception of the coders about the new system ought to be changed. The coders might have perceived that the new demands arising from the use of the new workflow system may exceed their individual resources or abilities (Glazer & Liu, 2017). These concerns and challenges should then be acted upon immediately. In addition, the support system and improved communication between the Health Information Manager and the coders will facilitate identifications of training needs. Training should then be held to address those needs. On the other hand, mindfulness-based stress reduction strategies such as meditation and yoga may be considered for stress management among the staff (Sharma & Rush, 2014).