Patient Safety Essay: Implementation Of Electronic Medication System In Medical Process

Question

Task:
Prepare a patient safety essay discussing about the reasons of implementation of new electronic medication system by Nurse Unit Manager in their medical process.

Answer

Introduction to the case scenario of patient safety essay
Electronic medication management system has developed its importance over time to improve the safety of the patients and help make effective decision making for patient care. It is one of the most effective ways to record the medical decisions and details of the patients. It is the initiative for patient’s safety that is taken by many hospitals to protect their patients and make their system standardized and effective (Westbrook et al., 2013). The report analyses the reasons behind the adoption of electronic medication system and the ways in which the Nurse Unit Manager can implement new electronic medication system in their medical process. Further, the patient safety essay discusses the leadership style the nurse unit manager will use to implement the change and the ways to solve resistance to change.

Discussion
Reasons to Adopt Electronic Medication System
Electronic medication system is a term used to cover all computer systems that is used to conduct number of activities such as prescribing, administration, review and others. There are various kinds of electronic medication system used depending on different specialties. There are various reasons for which the medical units or the nurse manager plans to adopt electronic medical management systems. Westbrook et al. (2013) stated that the electronic medical record management system is adopted by medical units to keep a close track of the medicine been used in the medical unit. With the help of computer system, the record is easily available across all servers to implement easy transfers or future admissions. For example, when the patient is discharged from the hospital then the discharge bill and discharge medication list is easily exported to electronic discharge summary to keep a close track of the system. Further, the electronic medical system is used for easy accessible administration record. The nurses and doctors can get easy access to medication history across different divisions and unit of care in the hospital. It is one of the major ways to improve medical treatment for the patients by keeping a close record of their health. The electronic record also allow timely response to drug shortages, which is one of the crucial element in the medical unit and in turn improves treatment time. This means that the software of the electronic records help in improving overall legibility without much errors. Granlien & Hertzum (2012) further stated that the electronic medication system help in overviewing medication orders administer medication and keeping a record of accomplishment of all patients and their needs. With electronic medical system, the ordering of medication becomes simple and less time consuming. All these forms the major reason behind the use of electronic medication system in the clinical care environment.

What are the ways discussed in the patient safety essay in which Nurse Unit Manager Will Initiate Change?
Lewin’s Model to Change Process
The nurse unit manager in the Local Health District has planned to implement electronic medication record system in their system to help solve their communication errors. This is because the electronic system allow easy sharing of medical data and patient’s record all across the server. However, the nurse unit manager will make use of Lewin’s model of change to place the new electronic system in the clinical environment within two months and all wards is expected to adopt this electronic medical record process within six months (Kaminski, 2011). The nurse manager will lead the change using Lewin’s three-step model that will systematically change the existing medication record process.

Lewin’s change model is a planned method of change that identifies the group of behavior among the system and the areas that require change (Hussain et al., 2018). The driving forces identified in the patient safety essay will be shared with the team and implement new system in a systematic manner.

Table- Lewin’s Change Model
Source- Hussain et al., (2018)

Leadership Style to Plan the Change
Leadership plays an important role in implementing change because the behavior of the leader motivates the followers to adopt the change. Some of the leadership style forms the major reason behind resistance in change experienced in the organization (Long & Mao, 2008). There are different types of leadership style that a change leader can adopt such as transformational leadership, transactional leadership, laissez-faire leadership and others. As a nurse unit manager, I will implement transformational leadership style in the change management process. Transformational leadership is the one that target innovation and positive transformation in the organization. Transformational leadership helps improve productivity, reduce turnover, and increase job satisfaction and increase staff motivation. Transformational leaders always lead the team in collaboration with the team and in an inclusive manner. As a nurse unit manager, I will make use of transformational leadership style where the change in medical record system will be implemented in a collaborative manner with team discussion (Long & Mao, 2008). This leadership style outlined in herein patient safety essay will help motivate the nurse teams in the hospital to adopt the new electronic medical record system and allow them to learn about new system efficiently. This leadership style will help me to inspire the team to accept the change and reduce change resistance. However, this leadership style would increase conflict among team members regarding implementation of new electronic system. The inclusive team behavior would lead to differences in thinking among members and increase chances of conflict during change planning (Abutayeh et al., 2016). Thus, transformational leadership can prove to be time consuming if conflict occurs and there are differences in thinking of team members.

Comparison of Leadership Style
The transformational leadership style can be compared to transactional leadership style, which is yet another leadership behavior that is adopted in change planning. Transactional leadership is also implemented in successful change planning. Transactional leadership is implemented as a contractually agreed terms between the leader and the followers. Transactional leaders motivate the followers to meet goals by and emphasize on the roles played by the subordinates. Transformational leadership is similar to transactional leaders in motivating the team members for change, however, transactional leader work in a contractual manner to avoid conflict in team planning. With regards to the present context of patient safety essay, Long & Mao (2008) states that transactional and transformational leaders are both appropriate in leading change planning, however, in transformational leadership it becomes challenging for leader to make the followers ready to participate in the planning. Thus, as nurse manager I would face challenge in attracting nurse teams and other staffs to participate in change planning for adopting electronic medication record system. However, transformational leaders will allow better discussion with team members compared to transactional leaders that work in a contractual basis.

Potential Resistance to Change
The team will face two features of potential resistance to change when implementing the electronic medication record system in the hospital such as:

• Lack of confidence among the nurses and medical staffs to adopt to electronic medium of record handling.
• Fear of security in handling medical records using electronic system where there are privacy issues.

The resistance to change will be addressed using two processes such as timely training to medical staffs about electronic system and hiring technical expert to handle privacy of data in the electronic record system. These two methods will help in handling resistance by increasing confidence among the staffs to use the new system and reducing fear in them for leakage.

Conclusion
From the above analysis on patient safety essay, it can be concluded that the nursing managers along with nurse leader in a systematic manager will implement the change management. The staffs will be considering in each step of change to improve their confidence and motivate them to use electronic medium in multiple record keeping process. There will be implementation process in a way that reduce change resistance by discussing benefits of the new system in the medication process and reduce communication errors in the hospital.

References
Abutayeh, B. K., Samawi, G. A., Yosef, F. A., & Al-Qatawneh, M. I. (2016). The Effect of Leadership Style on The Process of Organizational Change in A Developing Country. 14(3), 1881-1895

Granlien, M. S., & Hertzum, M. (2012). Barriers to the adoption and use of an electronic medication record. Electronic Journal of Information Systems Evaluation, 15(2), 216.

Hussain, S. T., Lei, S., Akram, T., Haider, M. J., Hussain, S. H., & Ali, M. (2018). Kurt Lewin's change model: A critical review of the role of leadership and employee involvement in organizational change. Patient safety essay Journal of Innovation & Knowledge, 3(3), 123-127.

Kaminski, J. (2011). Theory applied to informatics-Lewin’s change theory. Canadian Journal of Nursing Informatics, 6(1).

Long, L., & Mao, M. (2008, October). Impact of leadership style on organizational change: An empirical study in China. In 2008 4th International Conference on Wireless Communications, Networking and Mobile Computing (pp. 1-4). IEEE.

Westbrook, J. I., Li, L., Georgiou, A., Paoloni, R., & Cullen, J. (2013). Impact of an electronic medication management system on hospital doctors' and nurses' work: a controlled pre-post, time and motion study. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 20(6), 1150-1158.