1

Running head: HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY RESEARCH

Healthcare Industry Research

Ivan Jesus Gonzalez
Nevada State College

2
Running head: HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY RESEARCH

In the healthcare industry patient safety is just as big of an issue as worker safety is,
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. 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. One could agree that the numbers alone are
shocking but this continues to be an ongoing problem. How do healthcare professionals writing
skills impact patient care?
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 med. assistants. As well as how miscommunication between health
care professionals cause 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 practitioners and its effect on both of their writing skills.
The communication on diagnoses of patients among doctors, nurses, and med. 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 between
peers. The documentation within medical records are very important because they contain the
patients history, clinical findings, diagnostic test results, preoperative care, operation notes, postoperative care, and daily notes of a patients progress and medications (Thomas, 2009). These
are just a few examples on why communication is key when having to carry out these procedures
patient by patient. However miscommunication can occur due to physicians assuming that entry

3
Running head: HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY RESEARCH

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 orders are missed, medication is not given, and diagnostic tests are delayed. A
medical professional should make sure that he/she communicated 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 isnt preformed successfully then errors are bound to occur, medication errors have
caused close to 80,000 hospital admissions a year in Australia and costing 350 million dollars
(Ash et. al, 2004). Although adverse events arent completely caused by miscommunication and
at times physicians do not focus on errors that were caused by technical dysfunctions or even
faulty programming. Unfortunately these hardware problems are a lot 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 times errors that occur due to
individual dysfunction arent 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 skill 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 have
longer and more rigorous training than NPs, nurse practitioners are incapable of providing
quality, safe care at the same level as physicians (Fairman et. al, 2011). A lot of the times the
records that physicians must use were written by nurses or med. assistants but this can be

4
Running head: HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY RESEARCH

difficult due to the fact that some physicians believe that nurse practitioners are lacking
competence to provide quality healthcare to begin with.
Comparing both M.D.s and NPs isnt the same as it once was because at the time this
wouldnt 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 isnt the
case anymore. Even patients cant 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. 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 will remain to be equally just as educated
only 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 well-rounded due variety in
training. 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. An observation will be initialized one
month from today at Desert Springs hospital and various physicians and nurse practitioners will
take part in this in examination as well as patients. This will be concluded in order to analyze the
differences in writing when under pressure and if they follow the same skills they were originally
taught while in training. The results of this observation will tell us if these medical professionals
communicate efficiently and also follow up on each task they must perform. Since research

5
Running head: HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY RESEARCH

showed that physicians are much more likely to assume that orders will be carried out without
further initiative. The physicians will also be examined to insure that proper paperwork is being
filed and that diagnoses on patients are being passed on correctly without any mistakes. Although
the same will go for the nurses participating to 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 happening
and the same goes for medication errors, these same physicians must be able to take
responsibility and test before implementation especially on a patient.

6
Running head: HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY RESEARCH

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

7
Running head: HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY RESEARCH

References
Ash, J. (2003, January 10). Perceptions of physician order entry: Results of a cross-site
qualitative study. Retrieved March 18, 2015, from
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14534628
Fairman, J., Rowe, J., Hassmiller, S., & Shalala, D. (2010, December 15). Broadening the
Scope of Nursing Practice NEJM. Retrieved March 18, 2015, from
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1012121
Hain, D., & Fleck, L. (2014, May 31). Barriers to Nurse Practitioner Practice that Impact
Healthcare Redesign. Retrieved March 18, 2015, from
http://nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/ANAMarketplace/ANAPeriodicals/OJIN/Tableof
Contents/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). London: Routledge
Falmer
Hendee, W. (1999). To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System. Journal of
Vascular and Interventional Radiology, P112-P113.