EHR Plan: Nursing
Summerville is a small-town hospital with both inpatient and outpatient services. Its EHR system is homegrown and functions, but it barely meets Meaningful Use (MU) Stage 2 criteria. The hospital’s goal is to implement a certified EHR, but the administration is weighing the benefits of two options: recruiting a skilled professional to rebuild the current system or purchasing a commercial system. There is pressure to decide as soon as possible.
Think about musts, constraints, and barriers:
- The new system must be fully implemented and operational within one year.
- The EHR must be able to meet MU Stage 3 criteria.
- The hospital has a very small IT department and a modest budget.
- The new EHR requires larger servers, new devices, central monitors, printers, and tablets.
- The wireless infrastructure must be upgraded to eliminate known dead spots in areas of the facility.
- The hospital wants to more effectively take advantage of select features such as clinical decision support and incorporate best practices or evidence-based medicine.
Complete the following steps for an EHR implementation plan based on the given information:
- Initiate a list of functional requirements for the new EHR.
- Complete a brief evaluation plan by developing five or six criteria for evaluating vendors’ products.
- Develop a list of all pros and cons of rebuilding a homegrown system.
Compose your plan in a three-page paper in APA Style with a minimum of three references that support your ideas with research from both nursing literature and general informatics literature.
