The skills required to conduct assessments and make recommendations that lead to improved outcomes are fundamental to your role as a nurse. Can the same be said for your role as a database designer, manager, or end-user?

In a word, yes. Regardless of your level of interaction with a database system, your assessments and recommendations can lead to design enhancements that improve functionality, improve the quality or integrity of data, and strengthen data security.

In this Assignment, you consider elements that might be appropriate for a database system assessment. You also recommend strategies for approaching data and network security.

Review this scenario:

Your organization, the Grand City Medical Center, has secured a deal to merge with a smaller hospital, City Memorial, located in a neighboring town. Your informatics team is tasked with analyzing the EMR system that City Memorial has in place and reviewing the data security, policies for ensuring that the data is secure, and the facility’s network security. You will compile your findings in a report presented to the chief information officer next week.

To prepare:

• Review the Learning Resources.
• Review the scenario.
• Search for two articles in the Walden Library related to best practices for data security and network security.
• Walden Library recommends the following:
  • Start with the Nursing Research DatabasesLinks to an external site.in the Walden Library. For some of the more technical research topics, also consider using the Information Systems & TechnologyLinks to an external site. Try more than one database as needed.
  • Perform a basic search with oneof the concepts presented.
    • Use quotation marks around a phrase like “data mining”
      Do notselect any limiters yet.
  • Look at results, especially the title and subject words to see related concepts and terms to add to your search.
  • Use orbetween related words, which means either term is acceptable. Example: machine learning or artificial intelligence
  • Add a second concept in Box 2 to focus your search. It helps to keep concepts separate, especially when multiple boxes are provided.
  • Try adding healthcare as a separate concept, particularly if you are using an information systems database.
  • Refine your results depending on what you find. Don’t be afraid to try other words or combinations of words to get a sizeable hitlist. Then you can apply limits.
  • Limits: Scroll down in the left column to limit by date (last 5 years) and limit the results to peer-reviewed scholarly journals only. It helps to do this after you know you have performed a successful search and identified possible synonyms and sub-topics.
  • To retrieve the full text of individual items, click on the Find@Walden button and follow the prompts. Sometimes this step takes persistence, since there are so many different publishers supplying content to these databases.
  • Ask a LibrarianLinks to an external site. if you need help!
• Reflect on policies that you may have encountered in your own nursing practice or those you have found in your research.
• Analyze challenges with and consider solutions for merging database systems.
• Consider how these topics and best practices are related to healthcare institutions in general.

Assignment (3- to 5-page paper):

• Based on the scenario above, identify the items that you would include in your assessment and explain why.
• Describe the policies that you would expect to find.
• Explain the network security challenges faced when facilities and database systems are merged.
• Recommend two strategies for securing data and the network. Be specific and provide examples.
• Analyze the relationship between best practices for securing data and healthcare institutions. Be specific and provide examples.