Summary: The Importance Of Electronic Clinical Notes In Nursing

Like all developments and initiatives, negative aspects of the change are also present as well as the positive aspects and this is no different for this development. Brooks and Erickson (2012) did a study on the impact of electronic clinical notes in the hospital and found both positives and negatives for the change. The negative impacts that they found in nursing care included usability concerns, server crashes and resistance to change from staff. Usability difficulty is probably one of the main concerns when brining in new changes as well as technology as it can be very difficult to use at the beginning. Carrington and Effken (2011) did a study on nurse’s perceptions of the positive and negative aspects to electronic health records and 100% …show more content…
How are nurses supposed to document their notes if the system is down? A study was done by Collier (2014) about how often these electronic crashes occur in hospitals that already have electronic clinical records. They found that they are common occurrence and also that they are not unpreventable. In their study they found that out of 50 institutes, that 96% of them experienced at least one unplanned down time in the last 3 years. So, if we are aware that these crashes are going to occur, what is there to do about it? El Mahalli, (2015) did a study on this topic and came to a conclusion that there is no prevention and instead it is about being prepared. They recommended have 24-hour technical support for all people using the system so that if something were to go wrong, they could get the support needed at any time. This will ensure that when problems and crashes do occur that the IT team can be notifies as soon as possible and then fix it with minimal time lost during the down time of technology. By having this support, nurses can remain focused on the care they give their patients not the system breakdown as it is in the hands of professionals. if people are aware of this 21-hour service then they are prepared for the crashes to occur and know what to do in an event of one. Overall, for barriers to be minimised as much as possible such as the usability difficulty and technology crashes, the nurses and others using the technology need to become familiar as possible with the systems and open-minded to learn. The main lesson is to not let these barriers affect the way that you provide care for your patients as using your initiative in these situations can be the best