Reference no: EM133951915

Question

EHRs must not only be able to house a client's health record but also help the provider to perform better, improve the quality of care, allow information exchange across service points and levels of the health system, and report data to the regional and national levels. Switching to an EHR also alters the provider-patient interaction. Providers spend time looking at the screen, typing, and scrolling, which may reduce their direct communication with patients. Less time spent talking with a patient has been associated with lower patient satisfaction with the quality of services received. The challenges of adopting EHR systems in the United States and other developed countries are fairly well documented, especially since the HITECH Act actively promoted the adoption of EHRs (Measure Evaluation, 2018). Evaluating electronic health record (EHR) implementation is a critical EHR implementation step. Conducting an evaluation will enable for continued improvement of workflows, achieve your goals, and needs, identify unresolved vendor issues, interface issues, and staff training needs (HealthIT.gov, 2019). There are six steps when it comes to measure evaluation process. The first step is to engage stakeholders. Stakeholders play an important role in the process of developing an evaluation plan. The success of a program's evaluation depends on strong commitment from program leaders and government. A commitment from these groups for evaluation can ensure that adequate resources are secured, stakeholders actively participate, and information from the evaluation is used. They can help determine and prioritize key evaluation question, pretest data collection instruments, assure the inclusion of ethical considerations, facilitate data collection, implement evaluation activities, increase the credibility of analysis and interpretation of evaluation findings, and ensure that evaluation results are reported and used. The second step is to know the program. Collect background documents and literature that can help understand the program and evaluate the context for which it operates. Compose a program impact pathway which is a systemic way to organize and present the relationship between planned activities and measurable objectives in a specific context. A program impact pathway is composed of a program's planned work and its intended results such as resources, inputs, activities, outputs, outcomes, and impact. The third step is to know your evaluation needs such as identify questions, gaps, and additional information needs, map activities to the public health questions approach. The public health questions approach is to know your health problems, determinants, response, input monitoring, monitoring outputs and coverage, outcome monitoring and evaluation, and impact monitoring and evaluation. The fourth step is to select the evaluation design. Identify research questions after you have a better understanding of the program, and its evaluation needs and information gaps. Gaps in information may require additional data collection. Decisions also need to be made regarding resource allocation and to adjust and improve programs. Although information should be routinely used during all phases of the program cycle, quality information is especially needed when planning a program to make corrections and to know whether goals were achieved. The fifth step is to draft the evaluation plan. An evaluation plan defines the steps needed to assess a program by highlighting program goals, clarifying measurable program objectives, and linking program activities to intended outcomes. A critical element is to identify roles and responsibilities of stakeholders taking into account any procedures to which stakeholders should adhere. Discussion of budget is also involved in the evaluation planning. A timeline should also be developed for the evaluation planning process, without which activities can drag on for weeks, months or years. The last step is to ensure use for evidence. The use of the evaluation plan and information it will produce should be anticipated, cultivated, and written into the plan. Planning for the use of evaluation plan is directly tied to the identified purpose of the evaluation and program priorities (Iskarpatyoti et. al., 2017). Evaluating EHR implementation and continuing to improve quality requires asking questions related to the culture and adoption, network and infrastructure, EHR vendor, etc.

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