You have been assigned as one member of a 3-4-member
nursing IT team at the local community hospital. The hospital is in
a rural area with the closest Tier-1 hospital (trauma center) three
hours away. In the past four years, there has been a noticeable
increase in the incidence rate of young adults with asthma
“attacks.” The nursing unit managers have performed research on
the issue and have determined that asthma patients readmitted
within 30 days with asthma exacerbations occurred most
noticeably during the winter months and on the weekends.
Further investigation showed that additional potential factors to
the asthma exacerbations appear to be brought on by the use of
e-cigarette’s and hookah smoking, and for patients with allergies.
The nursing managers have expressed a desire to incorporate
Telehealth measures and phone applications as a means of
educating the young adult populations on ways to control asthma
outbreaks. The team has researched the literature and noted that
Telehealth was introduced at other facilities with great success
and helped to improve outcomes for patients with the signs and
symptoms of asthma exacerbations. The nursing IT team will be
required to create and present a PowerPoint presentation to
nurse administration about the proposed plan.
This is a group project. The group is expected to create a voiced-
over PowerPoint presentation on using Telehealth technology
and/or phone applications to educate patients and improve on the
incidence and/or readmission rates of patients presenting with
asthma exacerbations through the emergency room. The
presentation should be approximately15 minutes long. Please
note: ONLY ONE person in the group is to submit the
PowerPoint presentation for the group.
The group presentation needs to include thorough answers
to the following questions:
1. A summary of the key issues.
2. Discuss the implications the technology would have on
health promotion (both positive and negative).
1. How will the use of the technology address the key
issues?
3. Identify the proposed telehealth technology. Research real
solutions or propose a solution for technology that may not
yet exist.
4. Describe a minimum of 5 key tasks needed to implement the
proposed technology based on the system life-cycle.
5. What concerns might patients express about using the
described technology? What policies might the IT team
propose to address these concerns?
6. Discuss the usefulness of the proposed Tele health
technology to increase patient education and to monitor for
patient readmissions.
7. How would training for the proposed solution be conducted
for patients and nursing staff?
8. What are potential issues with developing and sustaining a
tele-health program?
9. Conclusion
Rationale for Group Work
The rationale of the group work provides us with an opportunity to
navigate the challenges we face with technology. Think of this
project as if you were and interdisciplinary team but you all work
on different units at the same facility. There are barriers
associated to working on different units. Health care providers are
also creative critical thinkers. We often are able to see through
the barriers to see to the solutions. This, in essence, is the
foundation of this assignment. Working on a team without having
to be in the same room to bring technology to a patient without
them having to be in the same room to reap the benefits from it.
Further, the group project is the type of activity that you will see at
some point in a Bachelor’s degree program, as it is an
accreditation requirement and also an activity that meets the
American Association of the College of Nurses’ Essentials of
Baccalaureate Education, Essential VI, Interprofessional
Communication and Collaboration for Improving Patient Health
Outcomes. More and more you will see an integration of group
work in advancing degree programs because interprofessional
collaboration and communication has become vital to the
improvement of patient outcomes. Hospitals and other health care
facilities are being incentivized, via Medicare and Medicaid
reimbursements related to improved outcomes directly associated
to improved caregiver communication and collaboration (Nester,
2016).
References
American Association of the College of Nurses (AACN). (2008).
Essentials of Baccalaureate of Education: Essential VI –
Interprofessional communication and collaboration for improving
patient health outcomes. Retrieved from http://
www.aacn.nche.edu/education-resources/BaccEssentials08.pdf
Nester, J. (2016). The importance of interprofessional practice
and education in the era of accountable care. The North Carolina
Medical Journal, 77 (2), p. 128-132. doi. 10.18043/ncm.77.2.128
IMPORTANT – Group Guidelines:
• An automatic assignment of three or four members in a
group will be performed by the faculty member
• Please choose one leader to submit the final presentation
• Responsibility and task assignment should be shared evenly
among all group members
• The group needs to establish communication methods used
for this project.
IMPORTANT – Policy for Non-Responsive Group Members –
Project Guidelines for Students
1. All group members must participate
2. By the end of week 4, members of the team must report to
the faculty member if there are members in the group who
are not responsive or are not working in the group activities
via the identified means of communication (email, text,
phone, etc.) identified on Quiz 1.
3. Upon initial notification from students that there is a non-
responsive student in the group, an email from the instructor
will be sent to the group as a means of identifying the issues.
4. If the non-responsive student does not respond within week
4, the faculty will contact the student independently.
5. If the student is still not responsive after discussion with the
faculty member, the student will be removed from the group
and a requirement to submit a full presentation as an
individual will be requested.
PowerPoint Guidelines:
• Application: Use Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 or versions after
2007 (no XP).
• Length: The PowerPoint slide show is expected to be no
more than 15 slides in length (not including the title slide and
reference list slide).
• Technical Writing: APA format (6th) is required.
• Late Submission: See the course policy on late submissions.
• Tutorial: If needed, Microsoft Office has many templates and
tutorials to help you get started.
