Technology Needs Assessment

Nurse leaders play a key role in the decision-making processes associated with the purchase of health information technology and any subsequent technology upgrades and improvements. A thorough and accurate needs assessment establishes a foundation for evaluating the overall value to an organization of the various technologies that can be used to support nursing and improve patient care. Technology Needs Assessment

The needs assessment you will conduct in this unit enables you to take a systematic approach to developing knowledge about a new or upgraded telehealth technology that would impact nursing practice. The needs assessment also identifies assessment work that may already have been completed and any gaps that still exist and must be addressed. The goals of completing the needs assessment are to:

Identify gaps in practice that must be addressed to improve patient care.

Understand the nature and scope of needed changes and identify associated opportunities and challenges.

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Enable a thoughtful and systematic approach to change implementation and management.

This assignment provides an opportunity for you to work through the needs assessment process and present your findings in a way that will help you gain the support of executive leaders. Technology Needs Assessment

Scenario

Telehealth technology can be representative of many different scenarios. For example, the technology could be designed to assist nurses with providing care, such as chronic disease management, to rural patients. It could also be designed to enable physicians to access enhanced care strategies from other providers in another part of the U.S. or internationally. Such care strategies might include radiology readings or assistance in an operating room with a new procedure.

For this assignment and the remaining assignments in Units 5, 7, and 9, choose any new or upgraded telehealth technology that you would like to see implemented in your organization or practice setting. Be creative and imagine what it would be like to have any telehealth resources that would benefit your community. Then, imagine that executive leaders in your organization or practice setting are considering the purchase of those resources to improve the quality of care provided to patients and enable medical and nursing staff to extend coverage for patients in the region.

Finally, as a nurse leader with responsibilities in upper management, imagine that you have been asked to determine whether this purchase will adequately address key issues in patient care and lead to improved outcomes.

Instructions

Determine the need for new or upgraded telehealth technology. Present your findings and recommendations in an executive summary. Include any available assessments and gap analyses that may have been conducted previously.

The executive summary requirements, outlined below, correspond to the grading criteria in the Technology Needs Assessment Scoring Guide, so be sure to address each point. Read the performance-level descriptions for each criterion to see how your work will be assessed. The Guiding Questions: Technology Needs Assessment document, linked in the assignment resources, provides additional considerations that may be helpful in completing your assignment. In addition, be sure to note the requirements below for document format and length and for citing supporting evidence. Technology Needs Assessment

Explain the relevance and importance of a needs assessment.

Identify the key issues in nursing care affecting patient outcomes that the new or upgraded telehealth technology will address.

Identify the safety requirements and regulatory considerations when using this technology.

Identify the patient confidentiality and privacy protections that this technology must address.

Describe the potential impact of internal and external stakeholders and end users on the acquisition of this technology.

Support assertions, arguments, conclusions, and recommendations with relevant and credible evidence.

Write clearly and concisely in a logically coherent and appropriate form and style.

Technology Needs Assessment