Running head: HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY RESEARCH

Healthcare Industry Research

Ivan Jesus Gonzalez
Nevada State College

Running head: HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY RESEARCH

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Introduction
In the healthcare industry, patient safety is as big of an issue as worker safety, although
miscommunication is much too common. Since the release of the landmark institute of medicine
study in 1999, reducing the amount of medical errors has been top priority (Kohn et. al&
Korrigan, 2000, p.2). The Committee on Quality of Health Care in America founded a study in
2000 stating that preventable medical errors account for as many as 98,000 patient deaths per
yearmedication errors alone caused up to 7000 of those fatalities (Kohn & Korriganet. al,
2000, p. 27). One could agree that the numbers alone are shocking, but this continues to be an
ongoing problem. This large number of fatalities raises the question: How do healthcare
professionals writing skills impact patient care?
Literature Review
The literature review contains two different themes on the impact that healthcare writing
can have on patient care. One of these themes is the communication and miscommunication
among doctors, nurses and medical assistants. Miscommunication among health care
professionals can provoke adverse advents such as medication errors or even technical
malfunctions. The other theme is the differential between the training that a physician must
undergo compared to a nurse practitioner, and its effect on both of their writing skills.
The communication on diagnoses of patients among doctors, nurses, and medical
assistants should be clear and concise. All of these healthcare professionals have a vital role to
play when performing their duties. Writing skills should be just as important as communication
among peers. The documentation within medical records is very important because it contain
the patients history, clinical findings, diagnostic test results, preoperative care, operation notes,
post-operative care, and daily notes of a patients progress and medications (Thomas, 2009,
p.4). These are just a few examples of why communication is key when having to carry out these
procedures patient by patient. However, miscommunication can occur due to physicians

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assuming that entry into the computer system replaces their previous means of initiating and
communicating their plans, and that orders will be carried out without further action on their
part (Gorman, 2003). As a result of this miscommunication, orders are missed, medication is not
given, and diagnostic tests are delayed. A medical professional should make sure that he or she
communicates clearly with whoever takes over handling the patient. In this case, it could be
between a nurse and a physician in the transfer phase. If this is not preformed successfully, then
errors are bound to occur. Medication errors are not only dangerous but are also very costly.,
Mmedication errors in Australia resulted in 80,000 hospital admissions in a year costing the
country 350 million dollars (Ash et. al, 2004). Although adverse events are not completely
caused by miscommunication, at times physicians do not focus on errors that were caused by
technical dysfunctions or even faulty programming. Unfortunately, these hardware problems are
much more common than they should be, and this is critical especially in a field like medicine.
However, these problems can be avoided through testing before implementation, and often errors
that occur due to individual dysfunction are not discussed. An example of this could be a
physician refusing to check for a technical problem because it is simply not his task.
Although the healthcare industry contains a complex variety of medical professionals,
there could be a differential between a nurse practitioners skills in writing compared to a
physicians. Both of them have a similar goal in mind and that is to improve patient outcomes,
but barriers that do not allow for successful collaboration exist. Physician dominant
organizations as well as the American Medical Organization believe that physicians' longer,
more intensive training means that nurse practitioners cannot deliver primary care services that
are as high-quality or safe as those of physicians (Fairman et. al, 2011). A lot of theMany times,
the records that physicians must use are written by nurses or medical assistants, but this can be

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difficult due to the fact that some physicians believe that nurse practitioners are lacking
competence to provide quality healthcare to begin with (Fairman et. al, 2011).
Comparing pPhysicians with medical degrees and nNurse pPractitioners is not the same
as it once was because years ago before nurse practitioners had the ability to receive advanced
degrees this would not even be a question. The roles between the two used to be easily
distinguished due to one wearing a white coat and the other one wearing a white uniform cap,
and this just is not the case anymore. Even patients cannot tell whether or not they are being
looked after by a physician or a nurse practitioner and the reason behind this is the development
of advanced degrees for nurses (Jecker et. al, 1991, p. 292). Their educational level was also a
reliable indicator, but now a doctor will have an undergraduate and an MD while a nurse might
have a masters degree as well a PhD. They used to be well separated, and this simply does not
exist anymore because physicians can prescribe you medicine but now so can nurse practitioners.
Both have equal education, but they undergo different types of education since a doctor will be
trained to think more analytically while a nurse will be well rounded and specialize in clinical
thinking. Author Julia Clarke on Perspectives on Learning says pity the poor nursing student,
who is required to write at times like a sociologist, at others like a philosopher, yet again like a
scientist and finally as a reflective practitioner given that the nurse would be more wellrounded due to variety in training (Clarke et. al, 2002). Seeing as they are both very educated and
long for the high risk field of medicine, this needs to be proven to see if there really is a
difference.
You need a conclusion paragraph for your Literature Review section.
Methods
In order to examine how healthcare professionals writing skill impacts patient care, an
observation will be initialized in April, 2015 at Spring Valley hospital because it has been said to
have the best cardiac unit in Las Vegas (source). Due to having past experience with the hospital,

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I am sure that institution will fit best with outstanding physician and nursing care. Fifteen15
physicians including ex. Ccardiologists, and anesthesiologists, nurse practitioners, licensed
practical nurses and patients will take part in this in examination. All of these medical
professionals are around the ages of 30-35 years of age meaning they have notnt had much
exposure in the field. The reason behind this is so we can examine how well they exhibit their
prior knowledge and if they follow specific guidelines that were set. This will be concluded in
order to analyze the differences in writing when under pressure and if physicians and nurse
practitioners follow the same skills they were originally taught while in medical school and
residency. The results of this observation will inform fellow researchers and the hospital itself if
these medical professionals communicate efficiently and also follow up on each task they must
perform.
Research showed that physicians are much more likely to assume that orders will be
carried out without further initiative then to provide reassurance. The physicians and nurses will
also be examined to insure that their paperwork is being filed properly and that diagnoses on
patients are being passed on correctly without any mistakes. Nurses participating will identify if
they can properly carry out procedures whether or not they are passed down by the physician
especially being in a pressured environment. Past research allowed us to detect the reason why
adverse events were occurring following medication errors. These same physicians must be able
to take responsibility and test before implementation especially on a patient.
References
Aiken, L. (2003, January 10). Educational levels of hospital nurses and surgical patient mortality.
Retrieved from http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=197345
Ash, J. (2003). Perceptions of physician order entry: Results of a cross-site
qualitative study. Journal, volume, issue, p. # Retrieved from
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14534628
Fairman, J., Rowe, J., Hassmiller, S., & Shalala, D. (2010). Broadening the

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scope of nursing practice. Journal, Volume, Issue, p. #. Retrieved, from

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1012121
Hain, D., & Fleck, L. (2014). Barriers to nurse practitioner practice that impact
healthcare redesign. Journal, volume, issue, p. # Retrieved from
http://nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/ANAMarketplace/ANAPeriodicals/OJIN/T
ableofContents/Vol-19-2014/No2-May-2014/Barriers-to-NP-Practice.html
Harrison, R., & Clarke, L. (2002). Academic writing in new and emergent discipline areas. In
Supporting Lifelong Learning: Perspectives on Learning (Vol. 1). (Eds) London:
Routledge Falmer p. 10
Kohn, L., & Corrigan, J. (2000). To Err is human: Building a safer health system. Journal of
Vascular and Interventional Radiology, (Vol. 6). p.112-113.
Jecker, N., & Self, D. (1991). Separating care and cure: An analysis of historical and
contemporary images of nursing and medicine. The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 16,
285-306. Retrieved from file://fs01/profiles_students$/5002399904/Downloads/SeparatingCareAndCure.pdf
Reflection
The introduction and literature review were fairly simple and required me to do some
research on the topics. I looked back at my old English 100 papers and remembered how to cite
properly in APA and how to format the paper as well. I feel like I successfully implemented the
themes into the paper and that they followed the research question. Although when it came to the
methods section thats where I was confused for a couple of days. I wasnt sure how to start it or
even how to arrange it in the proper form.
Luckily I had some feedback which helped me figure out if I was on the correct path to
finishing this paper. The feedback especially helped me made the methods section of the paper
and I feel like I did it correctly but it is possible that some things can be added to it after being
edited. I am anxious to find out what I can do to make this paper much better. I went ahead and

Running head: HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY RESEARCH

added all of my references now rather than later and then not being able to find a single website
that I used.

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