Introduction
Sports medicine is a specialization of medicine that mainly deals in treatment and cares for athletes, both amateur and professional it focuses on the physical fitness of these athletes. Sports Medicine nurse practitioners treat injuries from sports activities and exercise. Other areas it focuses on is the treatment of athletes with some medical complications. On the other hand, nursing homes are treatment centers for people who cannot be cared for at the hospitals or their homes. Such people may include the elderly, traumatized people, the disabled, or people with medical problems that require long term keen care and treatments. Nursing homes do have medical equipment and qualified nurses that help in the treatment of this kind of patients.
Compare and Contrast the Content of Sports Medicine vs Nursing Home
There is always a high risk of getting injuries during sports activities. The main aim of Sports Medicine is to prevent the occurrence of such risks and even the injuries themselves. At the first stages of treatment, diagnosis, and collection of data about the injury is key. Several medical devices can be used in obtaining information about the injury and even the medical health status of the athletes. Such data is key in helping the nurses perform their treatment routine on the athlete (Missouri, 2018). These devices employ technology in collecting data about the health of athletes during training or actual sports events. Athletes may put on sensors, for example, to send data to nurses about their health after which nurses will know how to keep them healthy.
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Nursing homes, on the other hand, also use high tech medical devices to collect information about their patients. They can retrieve medical records and history of patients, which will help them in treatment. In every nursing home, there is access to a repository of data about their patients. The data in the repository is in the form of a Minimum Data Set, where measure is obtained about the treatment of the patient. This data set is an assessment done on every patient at some particular interval to keep their health records updated. All the medical records of the patients obtained from such sources help the nurses in proper diagnosis and treatment of these patients.
While Sports Medicine only cares for athletes, nursing homes care for almost all kind of people of any age, including psychiatric patients. Furthermore, sports medicine only deals with the physical wellbeing of the patients. This implies that sport medicine nurses can be so useful in building the physique of their patients. Nurses at nursing homes can go to extreme care that includes feeding the patients or even bathing and dressing them. There are all kinds of trained nurses in a nursing home, including therapists. In a sports medicine facility, only the sports nurse practitioner and maybe paramedics are available. Therefore, sports medicine is a more specific nursing branch, whereas nursing home is a wider medical, occupational facility.
Clinical elements in both Sports Medicine and Nursing Homes
Participating in sports activities and regular exercise can improve the general health of the body and reduce the chances of chronic illnesses. Regular body exercises have several benefits like muscular endurance, improve the cardiorespiratory system, flexibility and physical fitness, body compositions, and reduced general stress. Sports medicine has both specialists that direct proper sport and exercise activities and Sport Medicine physicians that diagnose and treat the medical complications that may arise from sport and exercise activities. Nursing homes have a key goal of managing clinical problems on their patients. Some of these clinical problems include management of resident patient behavior that may seem non-pharmacological, identification of virus on patients, and diagnosis of dementia-related complications on patients (Unwin, & Porvaznik, 2010). In the case that medical practitioners want to develop a shared clinical system, they may want to consider certain practices in improving patient health. For example, they should recondition the diet and exercise patterns of the patients to improve their nutritional status and lives which would, in turn, help in the treatment of both athletes and nursing home patients.
Features of the Right Clinical System
Good clinical systems have the Electronic medical record (EMR). The EMR software helps the clinic to record the medical history of the patients and then store them safely for future use. For sports medicine, the Electronic medical record allows them to simplify the data collected from a given individual. The collected information is kept to safety and reported to the relevant individuals. The EMR software makes it possible for clinical officers in sports medicine and other trainers to plan their daily program for the athletes. For home nursing, Electronic medical record helps in improving their documentation and billing at the same time.
Data storage makes it possible to access and manage the data. This information can be very significant for both sports medicine professional and the athlete. In sports, the data collected helps in the analysis of athlete performance and their health. In nursing homes, the data storage allows the clinician to monitor the health progress of the patient or the older adult daily.
Public Health Information Network (PHIN)/Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) are bodies that were formed by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). PHIN and NHIN were established to help health care center and other organization to be able to share information online. For both nursing homes and in sports medicine professionalism, PHIN and NHIN are working tirelessly to come up with a way of exchanging health information safely (Zhang et al., 2016). In sports medicine, the physical and mental health of the athlete is very crucial as well as those in the nursing home. However, PHIN/NHIN allows sharing the information on prevention of diseases, any pollution, sanitation information, infectious illness, and the immunization details.
For example, in the regional sports medicine initiative consists of only the physical therapist, trainers, and relevant surgeons. The program members work toward the prevention of any injuries that may be caused as a result of training. They diagnose the patients for any injuries. In case of any injury, the members work toward the provision of quality and safe health care to the patients. At the same time, the regional nursing homes work together toward the provision of quality health care through sharing the relevant health information.
Implementing a Shared Clinical System to both Sports Medicine and Nursing Homes
Electronic Health Record (EHR) would be the most preferred when the nurses will analyzing the shared information for both nursing homes and in sports medicine. The EHR will make it easier for medical practitioners in both sports health and nursing home to provide proper medical care and treatment to their patients. This system will be proving accurate and updated patient information. Any changes will be easily implemented and accessed by both the sports medicine part and nursing home. Legally and ethically, the system would be secure and promise not to jeopardize the autonomy of patient information. Also, from a public policy perspective, the EHR would be a reliable source of information with so much safety precautions on its use, and this would generally improve treatment to both parties.
To implement the system, there will be a need for a step by step guideline that acts as a roadmap to be followed. This guideline should outline the responsibilities, practices, and procedures required of patients, physicians, managers, and the IT stuff. Massive and careful recruitment of a committee to implement this system then follows. The next step would be calculating and estimation the implementation cost and preparation of a budget for the same and preparing such costs expectations and budget help in avoiding unnecessary costs and expenses. The fourth stage would then be developing a schedule and plan for the implementation. The fifth stage will be the migration of data from both the branches into one system. This stage is the most important and critical one as they should avoid loss of data or mixing it up. Lastly, they will need to train the nurses and other involved parties on using the new system (EHR in Practice, 2017).
The nurses who have implemented the use of EHR for a longer period have an important role to play in the nursing industry. Experienced nurses are responsible for training new nurses on how to use the EHR software on how to record and keep the data safely. At the same nurses are also the same people who develop policies for operating the EHR. The policies should help in analyzing the outcome of the recorded information (Crystal & Charlotte, 2014). The informatics nurses help in good documentation as well as the safety of the patients.
Conclusion
In conclusion, nursing homes focus on caring who cannot be in either hospital or their homes. The sports medicine cares for the well-being of the sports people and their progress in their athlete career. Use of Electronic medical record technology helps makes it easier for the trainers and physical therapist to get every information they need for them to help the athlete. For the nursing homes, the nurses use Information Technology such as Electronic medical record to access patients’ information from other hospitals.
References
Crystal, R., & Charlotte, S. (2014). The informatics nurse specialist role in electronic health record usability evaluation. Nursing Center, 32(5), 214-220. Retrieved on June 3, 2019 from https://www.nursingcenter.com/cearticle?an=00024665-201405000-00004&Journal_ID=54020&Issue_ID=2466022
EHR in Practice. (2017). EHR implementation plan. Retrieved on June 3, 2019 from https://www.ehrinpractice.com/ehr-implementation-plan.html
Missouri, A.F. (2018). Information technology in nursing homes bolsters care. Retrieved on June 3, 2019 from https://www.futurity.org/nursing-homes-information-technology-1895652-2/
Unwin, B.K., & Porvaznik, M. (2010). Nursing home care. American Family Physician, 81(10), 1229-1237. Retrieved on June 3, 2019 from https://www.aafp.org/afp/2010/0515/p1229.html
Zhang, N., Lu, S.F., Xu, B., Wu, B., Monguio, R.R., Gurwitz, J. (2016). Health information technologies. Journal of Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine, 17(5), 441-447. Retrieved on June 3, 2019 from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jamda.2016.02.028
