NR 361 Week 4 Discussion; Data Management

Step 1: Review the scenario below: Advantages- A nationwide healthcare data management system has several pros and cons related to patient care and outcomes. As a nurse working in healthcare, I find it most beneficial to have continuation and coordination of care for patients. Access to records and patient data can provide crucial information for the medical team as we collaborate and make decisions to ensure the best possible outcome. “Health information exchange (HIE) that ensures that patient health information follows each patient as they move between care settings is important to providing well-coordinated care” (Reed et al., 2020). It allows us to analyze past and present data such as lab values, scans, medication orders and dosages, treatments, surgeries, and other information to ensure we are not duplicating or can utilize it to compare, looking for any changes that may be of concern. From a patient perspective, I can see this being beneficial and more efficient. If you enter into a new healthcare system it can feel like most of your time is spent going through past medical history, allergies, medications, etc. Utilizing a nationwide healthcare data management system would allow this information to be available and give the healthcare team more time to focus on the new concern or medical emergency present. Having immediate access to pertinent information can allow for more positive patient outcomes, and less medical errors. Disadvantages/concerns- Lack of security, breaches or attacks on healthcare data management systems is one of the largest concerns from a patient and healthcare system perspective. According to D’Aliberti and Clark (2022), “Improper EHR resource sharing occurs when Personally Identifiable Information (PII) or Protected Health Information (PHI) is shared without patient approval. This could take the form of a data breach in which an external party gains access to the data by attacking a third-party server, like the AMCA data breach [5]. But it could also originate from a less malicious, but equally dangerous, loss of security control when sensitive healthcare records are shared with multiple parties [6]. In either case, the leakage threatens institution reputation and jeopardizes patient privacy”. “Risks include medical identity theft and extortion attempts based on threats to release sensitive patient information. Hacking is now a foreseeable additional risk of medical treatment. Risk mitigation for the consequ