ARRA Nurses Ready?
Professor and industry leader Rosemary Kennedy explains how the EHR plays a central role in helping nurses to prepare for Meaningful Use and the future of health care.
(07/2011)


As health care executives set goals for their facilities to achieve Meaningful Use compliance, nurse leaders are also determining how to integrate clinical quality measures into care delivery on the floors.

According to Rosemary Kennedy RN, MBA, FAAN, associate professor at Thomas Jefferson University School of Nursing, by embracing EHRs and increasing technology use, nurses can both improve patient outcomes and move their facilities closer to ARRA compliance.

"We are finally moving in the direction of a high-performing health care system, and the impact for nurses is huge," she says.

"With electronic health records, we have a tool that supports care delivery and decision-making in real time. The value of EHRs is not in their automation, but in how they can help us to guide our care decisions, capture the essence of care delivered, and then evaluate that care's impact."

According to Kennedy, the health care system is now shifting from disease-centered, to patient-centered--which means that the EHR will take a central role in tracking patients' health conditions over their entire lifetimes.

"The way we deliver care is changing, which means that the way we measure quality must also change," she says.

"By using an integrated EHR, clinicians are able to more effectively evaluate their patients over the long-haul, as well as make decisions which positively impact them today in time."

Advances in HIT are also helping nurses to comply with the demands associated with ARRA.

"Meaningful Use is all about being able to use information technology to support improved outcomes and lower costs," Kennedy explains.

"The key for nurse leaders is to know what to do with the data you have. Quality measures and reports help us to ensure that the care improvements we're undertaking are actually working, and benefiting the communities we serve."