How Nursing Informatics Can Improve Healthcare in psychiatric hospitals

 

How Nursing Informatics Can Improve Healthcare in psychiatric hospitals

Introduction

Technology is by far the most advanced areas in our modern day living that continue to rapidly grow due to the ever changing human needs to make life almost easy and perfect. In healthcare, technology has greatly changed the way care is provided to patients, how patient data is managed to billing on all levels. For psychiatric hospitals, for instance are now showing a huge interest in nursing informatics and there can never be a better time to incorporate this field into their day-to-day practice. With nursing informatics, it is bringing patients, their families, practitioners, nurses, and lawmakers to the table to streamline communication process and data sharing to ensure successful patient outcomes and protect the overall public health. Today, we will review nursing informatic trends and the impact it has had to psychiatric hospitals.

Digitized Records

Can you imagine paper documentation and how cumbersome that must have been prior to implementation of basic computers? Now, paper documentation is almost unheard of, except in some psychiatric hospitals that still use paper documentation. Digital data and records is and has been the backbone of any operating healthcare system. Every patient care now involves electronic digital technology. Speaking of trending technology in my current psychiatric hospital has incorporated the following technology:

o   Pocketalk Model Real Time Two-Way 82 Languages

Pocketalk technologies have changed the way psychiatric hospitals manage mental health. While there are many software used for EHRs vary depending on the needs of the business, Epic is being widely used by most hospitals. In some psychiatric hospitals, they have been using Avatar Nx a web-based version that is considered old school however upgraded. This is to allow for interoperability within systems and decrease fragmented patient data and poor health outcomes.

In addition, Pocketalk is another advanced technology that has changed how care is delivered to mental health patients. There has been an increased rise of mental health cases in underserved communities, communities of color, that have been challenged by language barrier. This technology has brought translation services of psychiatric and medical visits to the hearts of the patients in their own languages, making it an epic breakthrough in allowing patients to make their own health decisions (Feiring & Westdahl, 2020).

A personal experience

Think of a severely mentally ill patient that is from Somalian culture, knows only basic English salutation, in a new country, in a locked psychiatric facility, with new people, new language, and no family to talk to. Think of this patient requesting for a snack, stating to a nurse staff, “me want banana”, or furthermore this patient attempting to tell a staff nurse, “me stomach hurting”. This patient is on Zyprexa for the first time, ends up having a severe bowel blockage as a result of constipation from the psychiatric medication. This patient was not able to communicate his needs due to language barrier that resulted in harm. Staff nurse later learns his verbal communication of his stomach hurting was due to constipation. This patient’s culture does not call for discussion of such sensitive matters, however, patient was harmed. Plan of action as a result of filing a vulnerable adult case was implementing the Pocketalk device to help with interpretation of any communication, from day-to-day conversations to provider-to-patient communication.

Notice the issue here? This health system was not technologically equipped to handle these kinds of special cases. Many health systems have found themselves in these kinds of challenging cases that have resulted implementing technology to meet not only the needs of the business, but also those they serve.

Issues Associated with lack of advanced technology in psychiatric hospitals

Psychiatric hospitals are different from traditional hospitals due to the complexity of patients they serve. More so, psychiatric hospitals more than ever are seeing patients from all kinds of ethic and cultural backgrounds than ever before. Most policies and procedures for most hospitals are based on models that were created to manage a traditional regular patient. When a patient from a different ethnic background is admitted, who speaks limited English or no English at all is admitted, nurses follow their admission polies currently in place. This patient, therefore, per polices in place, does not meet the traditional patient model set forth by hospitals. This has led to poor diagnosis and care for these kinds of patients as psychiatric hospitals have not incorporated into their models, technological interpretation services to meet the needs of this special kind of patient population (Krampe, et al., 2022).

Potential solutions

•   Integrate interpretation technologies in current systems
•   Revise and update policies to incorporate interpretation technology as a form of documentation and practice
•  Increase interoperability 

Integrate interpretation technologies in current systems

This will allow for nurses to understand and interpret within their scope of practice, what patients from other cultural and ethnic backgrounds are presenting to them, outside of a traditional patient. This will create an environment that allows for understanding of the overall health of the patient, regardless of their language barrier and successful patient outcomes.

Revise and update policies to incorporate interpretation technology as a form of documentation and practice.

These policies should be based on the trauma-informed care framework. This framework requires an understanding of not only how trauma has impacted patients lives, but also how language barrier can be trauma in itself. It reminds me of the adage by Nelson Mandela that says, “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.”

Increase interoperability

This is the idea that multiple psychiatric hospitals are communicating and are compatible in order to maintain continuity of care of these patients that are in a hospital level of care as they transition to step down psychiatric programs all the way to residential programs or back to living in their desired communities. Interoperability continues to be a challenge especially in rural area psychiatric hospitals and have been a difficult challenge with the pandemic (Sewell, 2019). 

Final thoughts

Interpretation technologies will be a challenge for many health systems to incorporate. However, progress in being made to invest and innovate this aspect as mental illness has become a global issue. It is evident that the few innovations of interpretation services has made tremendous comeback in how care is provided to the mentally ill that have language barriers. This will also lead to the efforts being made around health disparities and allow for understanding the root causes of what drives higher rates of complex health and social needs.

References

Feiring, E., & Westdahl, S. (2020). Factors influencing the use of video interpretation compared to in-person interpretation in hospitals: a qualitative study. BMC Health Services Research, 20(1), N.PAG. https://doi-org.ju.idm.oclc.org/10.1186/s12913-020-05720-6

Krampe, F., Fabry, G., & Langer, T. (2022). Overcoming language barriers, enhancing collaboration with interpreters - an interprofessional learning intervention (Interpret2Improve). BMC Medical Education, 22(1). https://doi-org.ju.idm.oclc.org/10.1186/s12909-022-03213-0

Sewell, J. (2019). Informatics and nursing: Opportunities and challenges (6th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Wolters Kluwer.