Question

Part 1

Read the scenario.

Patients who have scheduled coronary artery bypass grafts have a great need for education before, during, immediately following, and after discharge. This education helps the patient understand the procedure and what they should expect. It is essential to provide information regarding care before, during, and after the surgery. Also, patients need information on pain management, resuming activity and physical therapy, self-care, limitations, and concerns that they should report.

Part 2

Post a response to the discussion board.

Discuss the following questions in your post:

How can informatics be used to improve a patient's education about a CABG?

How can educating patients through informatics improve patient outcomes?

Describe at least two of the ten levels that e-patients access and use in regards to health care information online.

If a patient who is scheduled for a CABG states "I know all about this. I have been reading up on the Internet"—what concerns do you have?

What types of sources would you suggest a patient seek on the Internet?

Answer 1

The advantages of applying information technology in all aspects of nursing, including clinical areas, management, education and research and its influence on health care have been reviewed. Today, the subjects of clinical nursing information systems, decision support systems and medical diagnostic systems are associated with collecting patient information. Regarding the technology-rich environment, health care and hospital information systems developers, the quality of care is improving. For increasing patient safety and its leading to an evidence-based nursing, nursing informatics has been enhanced for students and graduates by Columbia school of nursing.

In order to enhance the application of technology in the delivery of coaching or support based interactions in the CVS environment, continued investigation to assess patients’ needs for technology and desirability to use technology as a tool to assist in their post-operative recovery experience is needed. Based on the results of a needs assessment, if patients indicate that they have minimal proficiency or do not value technology; then alternative mediums for delivering support based interventions should be offered. However, if patients are open to engaging in interactions through the use of technology then this mediums should be incorporated into the design of patient care.

Using existing technology (i.e. online chat rooms) to deliver coaching or support based interventions will allow patients the flexibility to interact with a nurse, in real time, from the comfort of their homes. They can review the transcripts from the coaching sessions anytime as it is stored on the online chat discussion boards, and they do not have to be proficient in using the internet to be successful.

Future nursing research should assess the effectiveness of providing patients with the option to receive a coaching session through either telephone interaction or online chat rooms. Patient’s preference for the medium of delivery of a coaching session will determine how they receive the intervention. Following delivery of the intervention, an assessment of acquisition of desired goals should be conducted to determine the effectiveness of the methodology (allowing patients the option to choose – i.e. patient preference). It is anticipated that providing patients with the option to choose to either use or not use technology during coaching sessions will enhance self-management of behaviours following heart surgery.