Background and Overview of the Fatality

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Week 8 Final Project

Read the “Firefighter Fatalities in the United States in 2016” report, and choose one of the causes of firefighter fatalities listed in the report to be the basis of your research. Then, design a policy based on a risk assessment that you perform for your current department or if you are not with a department, then use a future agency that you wish to serve or you can even use a fictional agency.  The intention of this policy is to minimize the potential death associated with the act.

The final project must include all of the following:

1. Background and Overview of the Fatality

2. Your conducted risk assessment

3. Discuss a policy you would enact to prevent this from happening again

The following link, also found in the Reading and Resources section of the Week 8 Lesson, may help with your additional research: Firefighter Fatalities, Safety and Health

Assignment Requirements

Your paper must be a minimum of 3 full APA formatted pages not counting the title page, abstract page and reference page.

Please see the APA Guides in the Course Materials announcement or in the Course Materials section of the Lessons Course Overview for further information on the proper APA formatting of your paper.

Please create your response in a Word document and upload as an attachment for submission.
All writing assignments must be submitted in APA format and shall include the following:
1. Title Page
2. Abstract
3. Main Body (With proper in-text citations) to include an Introduction and Conclusion
4. Reference Page (Be sure to pay attention to the indentions for each source)
Be sure to include a correct Running Head on each page.
All writing assignments must meet the following page setup:
1. Times New Roman font
2. 12 Point font size
3. Double Spaced
4. 1 inch Page Margins: Top, Bottom, Left and Right (Not 1.25 inches)

Implementation Assessment of Electronic Health Record.

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Health Informatics

Final Project 

Final Project: Implementation Assessment of Electronic Health Record.

Objective: 

For this assignment, you will create the assessment to implement the new HER in a Health care setting. The assessment phase is foundational to all other EHR implementation steps, and involves determining if the practice is ready to make the change from paper records to electronic (EHRs), or to upgrade their current system to a new certified version. You will be encourage to choose a Community Health Center or a Doctor’s Office. The Assessment is designed because our world has been radically transformed by digital technology – smart phones, tablets, and web-enabled devices have transformed our daily lives and the way we communicate. Medicine is an information-rich enterprise. A greater and more seamless flow of information within a digital health care infrastructure, created by electronic health records (EHRs), encompasses and leverages digital progress and can transform the way care is delivered and compensated. With EHRs, information is available whenever and wherever it is needed.

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, a component of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, represents the Nation’s first substantial commitment of Federal resources to support the widespread adoption of EHRs. As of August 2012, 54 percent of the Medicare- and Medicaid-eligible professionals had registered for the meaningful use incentive program.

The paper will be 8-10 pages long. More information and due date will provide in the assignments link.

ASSIGNMENT GUIDELINES (2 points /10%):

The assessment should look at the current state of the practice:

  • Are administrative processes      organized, efficient, and well documented?
  • Are clinical workflows efficient,      clearly mapped out, and understood by all staff?
  • Are data collection and reporting      processes well established and documented?
  • Are staff members computer      literate and comfortable with information technology?
  • Does the practice have access to high-speed      internet connectivity?
  • Does the practice have access to      the financial capital required to purchase new or additional hardware?
  • Are there clinical priorities or      needs that should be addressed?
  • Does the practice have specialty      specific requirements?

Through the Regional Extension Centers (RECs), we’ve learned that these questions and assessment tools provide a good understanding of the current state of the practice and can help identify key goals for improvement. Often, these goals relate to patient quality, patient satisfaction, practice productivity and efficiency, improved quality of work environment, and most important to the overall goal – improved health care.

 

EACH PAPER SHOULD INCLUDE THE   FOLLOWING:

1. Introduction (5 points / 25%) Offer an abstract that provide a brief outlook of the proposal and explaining in your own words what is meant by a Electronic Health Record for a Health care Facility.

2. Your Implementation Assessment of Electronic Health Record. Plan (10 points 50%)

a. Presentation Page:

PROJECT NAME

ORGANIZATION NAME

BUSINESS ADDRESS

CITY, ST, ZIP

TELEPHONE NUMBER

FACSIMILE NUMBER

WEBSITE ADDRESS

EMAIL ADDRESS

b. Envision the Future

The next EHR implementation step is to envision the future state of the practice. What would the practice leadership like to see different in the future? More specifically:

  • What will be different for the      patients?
  • What will be different for the      providers?
  • What will be different for the      staff?

c. Set Goals

Goals and needs should be documented to help guide decision-making throughout the implementation process. And they may need to be re-assessed throughout the EHR implementation steps to ensure a smooth transition for the practice and all staff.

We recommend that you set goals in areas that are important and meaningful to your practice. These may be clinical goals, revenue goals, or goals around work environment. Goals in all three areas will help assure balanced processes after the implementation. Goals that are important to you will help you and your staff through the change process. We recommend you follow the “SMART” goals process. This process includes setting objectives and goals that meet the following criteria:

  • Specific – Achieving the goal would make a      difference for our patients and our practice
  • Measureable – We can quantify the current      level and the target goal
  • Attainable – Although the goal may be a      stretch, we can achieve it
  • Relevant – This is worth the effort
  • Time bound – There are deadlines and      opportunities to celebrate success!

These goals become the guide posts for an EHR implementation project, and achieving these goals will motivate providers and practice staff to make necessary changes and attain new skills.

d. Plan Your Approach

Clarify and Prioritize

Building an EHR implementation plan becomes critical for identifying the right tasks to perform, the order of those tasks, and clear communication of tasks to the entire team involved with the change process. One effective first step in the planning process is for the team to segment tasks into three categories:

  • What new work tasks/process are we      going to start doing?
  • What work tasks/process are we      going to stop doing?
  • What work tasks/process are we going to sustain?

The start/stop/sustain exercise helps clarify what the new work environment will be like after the change and help the team prioritize tasks in the overall EHR implementation plan.

Steps in the Planning Phase

Here are some tactical steps that typically occur during the EHR implementation planning phase. You may collaborate and use tools provided by your Regional Extension Center (REC), IT vendor, and/or EHR vendor (if you already have an existing EHR product) to complete these activities.

  1. Analyze and map out the practice’s      current workflow and processes of how the practice currently gets work      done (the current state).
  2. Map out how EHRs will enable      desired workflows and processes, creating new      workflow patterns to improve inefficiency or duplicative processes (the      future state).
  3. Create a contingency plan – or      back-up plan – to combat issues that may arise throughout the      implementation process.
  4. Create a project plan for      transitioning from paper to EHRs, and appoint someone to manage the      project plan.
  5. Establish a chart      abstraction      plan, a means to convert or transform, information from paper charts to      electronic charts. Identify specific data elements that will need to be      entered into the new EHR and if there are items that will be scanned.
  6. Understand what data elements may      be migrated from your old system to your new one, such as patient      demographics or provider schedule information. Sometimes, being selective      with which data or how much data you want to migrate can influence the      ease of transition.
  7. Identify concerns and obstacles      regarding privacy and security and create a plan to address them. It is      essential to emphasize the importance of privacy and security when      transitioning to EHRs.

e.  Achieve Meaningful Use

The Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs provide a financial incentive for achieving “meaningful use”, which is the use of certified EHR technology to achieve health and efficiency goals. This section provides an overview of the Stage 1 and Stage 2 EHR meaningful use core and menu objectives for eligible professionals (EPs) as outlined by CMS – which are intended to set a baseline for electronic data capture and information sharing.

The meaningful use objectives are grouped into five patient-driven domains that relate to health outcomes policy priorities. As depicted in the dashboards below, each core and menu objective is aligned to one of the following domains:

  • Improve Quality, Safety,      Efficiency
  • Engage Patients & Families
  • Improve Care Coordination
  • Improve Public and Population      Health
  • Ensure Privacy and Security for      Personal Health Information

3. Conclusion (3 points / 15%)

Briefly recapitulate your thoughts & conclusion to Your Implementation Assessment of Electronic Health Record. Plan.  How did this plan impact your thoughts on Health Care Administrator and Health Information System?

Evaluation will be based on how clearly you respond to the above, in particular:

a) The clarity with which you associate, relates, stablish and apply your knowledge to generate the Implementation Assessment of Electronic Health Record Plan.

b) The Complexity, depth, scope, Profundity and organization of your paper; and,

c) Your conclusions, including a description of the impact of the Electronic Health Record on any Health Care Setting.

ASSIGNMENT DUE DATE:

The assignment is to be electronically posted no later than noon on Sunday, August 11, 2019.

Struck by Motor Vehicle at Highway Incident

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Week 1: LODD – Struck by Motor Vehicle at Highway Incident

Review the NIOSH – 2013-5: Volunteer Fire Fighter Killed When Struck While Operating at Scene of Multiple Vehicle Crash on Interstate Highway – Illinois

Did the conclusions in this report offer recommendations for future prevention of similar incidents? What relation did established regulations and standards have to the events surrounding the fatality?

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#1

After reading this extensive report, I feel the recommendations were glossed over and non-specific. While some specifics like the use of the right vests were covered, the reality of the situation and this report is that there is not a true pathway to preventing this from happening again. Blockers are touched on, but there is not a real guide to which vehicles are better, etc. I feel that I would have recommended that the vehicles have been positioned in a manner that protected a smaller personnel vehicle like the utility with a larger vehicle like the Engine. Imagine the difference in this outcome if the first vehicle struck was the heavier engine and then the smaller vehicle, instead of the smaller vehicle taking that first hit. The relationship between the regulations and standards to this incident seemed to be very lax, and while it was on the mind of many to be somewhat cognizant of the traffic issues, there were some oversights, such as the poor positioning and repositioning of the utility. (NIOSH, 2014)

A lot of department need better Traffic Incident Management training. I personally sought out better training and found www.respondersafety.com, which has SEVERAL amazing courses on the minutia of TIM, and the various recommendations specific to the many different situations faced on the roadways during these traffic incidents. One of the practices that is catching on in the area surrounding me is the re-purposing of the apparatus that are past their original uses, such as an old engine that can no longer pump for varying reasons, and stripping them down, then adding weight to them for the sake of having them serve the sole purpose of taking that initial hit during instances such as the one studied here. These units are dispatched to all motor vehicle crashes and provide a heavy blocker between traffic and the incident scenes. I picture them as mobile walls that can absorb the majority of the heaviest of vehicles in order to slow them down so significantly that they do as little damage to none to personnel and other apparatus actually being used to work the scene. (McLoone, 2019)

REFERENCES

NIOSH (January 2014) Volunteer Fire Fighter Killed When Struck While Operating at Scene of Multiple Vehicle Crash on Interstate Highway – Illonois (Retrieved from https://edge.apus.edu/access/content/group/security-and-global-studies-common/EDMG/FSMT405/NIOSH%20-%20F2013-5_Highway%20LODD.pdf) NIOSH

McLoone, C. (February 2019) Blocking Rigs (Retrieved from https://www.fireapparatusmagazine.com/articles/print/volume-24/issue-2/departments/editor-s-opinion/blocking-rigs.html) Fire Apparatus & Emergency Equipment

#2

This article summarizes the death of a volunteer fire fighter struck by a car hauler, during the operations of the fire department at a multiple vehicle crash in the State of Illinois on March 2013. Besides the summary of the event, it offers a complete and detailed report of the incident and an Incident Action Plan. The conclusion of the report presents multiple recommendations, that should prevent future similar incidents from happening again. It is crucial to follow these recommendations to improve safety, awareness and scene preservation:

-create a pre-incident plan regarding the placement of the emergency vehicles, PPE, and placement of personnel working on scene;

-develop a program to train all firefighters on all the safety and awareness procedures while operating on highway/roadway;

-monitor the scene continously for any possible change or updates;

-establish the procedures or guidelines for a full clearance of the scene; The conclusions of the report offer an improvement for the fire department, to ensure situational awareness and safety not only for the crew but also other individuals on a scene.

During the time of fatality, the crew did not have the proper awareness of vehicle placement, an example of this was Utility 105 repositioned multiple times. The proper vehicle placement offers a safe working environment. One way of avoidance for hitting other emergency vehicles on scene could be easily attained by simply adjusting the front wheels at angle. Another detail that was noticed, using the timeline provided, is that the incident commander never requested help to direct and manage highway traffic especially during inclement weather. If they had the proper highway work personnel or signs, traffic would have slowed down approaching the scene; the lane closure could have been proper to avoid any casualties as it did. It has been multiple factors surrounding this fatality and injuries. It is necessary to create an environment where the crew is trained properly for situational awareness, for different strategies to be applied and implemented, so that we do not need to wait for a line of duty death report to improve and better ourselves and the procedures.

Trace the Scientific Method in a Primary Scientific Article

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Written Assignment 1: Trace the Scientific Method in a Primary Scientific Article

Addresses course outcomes 1 and 4:

· recognize and explain how the scientific method is used to solve problems

· weigh evidence and make decisions based on strengths and limitations of scientific knowledge and the scientific method

Before starting this assignment you might want to revisit the Scientific Method Tutorial in the Science Learning Center under the Content area.

Please review one of the provided Science Daily articles and the corresponding peer-reviewed scholarly written article below.

1. Identify and describe the steps of the scientific method. Which observations do you think the scientists made leading up to this research study? Given your understanding of the experimental design, formulate a specific hypothesis that is being tested in this experiment. If a hypothesis is stated, please rewrite it IN YOUR OWN WORDS. Describe the experimental design including control and treatment group(s), and dependent and independent variables. Summarize the results and the conclusion (50 points)

2. Criticize the research described. Things to consider: Were the test subjects and treatments relevant and appropriate? Was the sample size large enough? Were the methods used appropriate? Can you think of a potential bias in a research study like this? What are the limitations of the conclusions made in this research study? Address at least two of these questions in your critique of the research study (20 points).

3. Discuss the relevance of this type of research, both for the world in general and for you personally (20 points). Proper grammar will count for 10 points.

4. Write a paper with title page, introduction, paragraphs addressing the questions, conclusion and references. You must write in your own words and paraphrase information from the selected information sources, addressing each of the questions for your chosen topic. Your paper should consist of less than 10% direct quotes. Your paper should be 500 – 750 words, excluding references and title page. Use APA format.

Article:

Higher dose of vitamin D increases bone density in premature babies

Higher dose of vitamin D increases bone density in premature babies

Recent investigations suggest that if the standard supplementation of 400 IUs of vitamin D is increased to 800 IUs daily there are reductions in the number of premature and preterm babies with extremely low bone density.

Reference retrieved from:

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0185950

Avoid plagiarism

It is very important to write with your own words. If you do copy one or two sentences directly (use sparingly), use quotation marks (“) around the copied text. All information sources need to be included in the reference list and as in-text references.