As every other profession, the healthcare sector has continued to rely on technological progress and trends to improve the quality of patient care. Nursing informatics is a nursing discipline that combines information sciences, computer science, and nursing to build and manage medical systems and data in order to promote the nursing practice and enhance patient care outcomes. A nurse informatics specialization combines technological expertise with nursing skills to create a framework that ensures high-quality patient care. In every organization, making good use of nurse informatics is critical because it allows other nurses and the company to benefit from the experience and information added to the team. Among the technical advances that positively affected patients’ care are robot technology, biometrics, clinical decision support, electronic health records, and other technological advancements. Nurses are encouraged to understand how tools in healthcare technology are used in order to participate more in patient care and the role they play.
Nursing Informatics and Nurse Informaticist
Nursing informatics allows nurses to collaborate with various health stakeholders to close the gap between the technological perspective of nursing and the clinical field of infant care. In the provision of health services for patients, effective use of nursing information technology encourages patient protection and quality results.
Defining Nursing Informatics
Nursing informatics is a form of nursing professionalism that entails nurses having the knowledge to process and analyze how best to communicate, manage and deal with patients. This specialty is unique in that it encourages interdisciplinary and professional teamwork, given that all care providers must use knowledge, processes, and technology to address patients’ needs (Hussey et al., 2017). The nurse informatician works with other clinicians to implement health technology and to refine it continuously. Furthermore, only when health information and nursing technologies are used properly will they be useful to a patient.
The Role of the Nurse Informaticist
The principal roles of nursing computer scientist are to develop standards that guider the implementation of best evidence-based practice. Communications standards are established, which facilitate a clear data infrastructure. The major employers of nurses informaticist are hospitals, in which they choose emerging technologies and implement them. The most recorded role of nurse nurses informaticist is to support and train new nurses (Hussey et al., 2017). Policy writing, system efficiency optimization, quality, control and project management are some of the day-to-day activities of healthcare workers. Nursing informatics is a discipline focused upon incorporating the expertise of nursing science into the communications, management, and data.
Nurse Informaticist and Health Care Organizations
Nurse informaticist are primarily working in hospitals as well as other healthcare institutions such as nursing homes and qualified care centers. For healthcare organizations, the nurse informaticist is a major puzzle of peace because it is a link between nurses and healthcare technicians.
Experience of Health Care Organizations with Nurse Informaticist
The experience and interaction of healthcare companies with the nurse informaticist are various. Caregivers are willing to identify transformative interventions when they are able to identify health inequalities. They will define, pick and develop various initiatives for the well-being of the patient. The John Peter Smith Hospital is an outstanding example of a healthcare organization. The nurses in this facility in Texas have contributed with creating a specific algorithm for patient monitoring using Electronic Medical Record and Mobile Health (mHeallth) to recognize red flag for human trafficking. This unique approach worked well in the emergency department of the John Peter Smith Hospital by affecting the improved workflow among healthcare providers (Collins et al., 2017). The approach has also provided guidance and action for nurses when a problem arises.
The Texas Health Hospital is another example of a health care organization where the nurse informaticist use technologies to verify the importance of their work by Electronic Health Record. The operations showed that the workload in surgical and medical units decreased from documents to all the electronic records (Collins et al., 2017). In addition, the predictive model was informed by the combination of advanced analytical techniques and clinical expertise among hospitals.
Nurse Informaticist Interaction with The Rest of the Nursing Staff and the Interdisciplinary Team
Healthcare professionals engage in many ways with the health care personnel and interdisciplinary teams. In John Peter Smith Hospital and Texas Health Hospital, for example, nurse informaticist collaborates with the nursing and the interdisciplinary team. In addition, by coordinating meetings and training for key players and health practitioners they equip them with the technology to enhance patient care (Collins et al., 2017). The implementation of nursing specialization has also led to the rapid adoption in health institutions throughout the world. Furthermore, the high demand for healthcare professionals in the US highlights the desire to improve patient results through technology. Therefore, they are also responsible for providing care in order to train patient, interdisciplinary team members have been trained on the use and benefits of the mHealth and EMR resources.
Impact of Full Nurse Engagement in Health Care Technology
Full involvement of healthcare technology in the use of EMR and mHealth health technologies helped to enhance patient outcomes across the full spectrum of positive effects. Research has shown that mHealth technology supports the inspiration, improvement in behaviour, and participation of patients (Booth, 2016). For example, providers of healthcare use mHealth resources to track the health of patients through EMR. In addition, the resources enable health professionals to communicate when delivering treatment with patients and with one another.
The nurses can ensure patient data is HIPAA-compliant because sensitive patient data are contained in the EMR and mHealth apps. Workflow Costs and Return on Investments by excessive providers and appointments are often guaranteed by the involvement of healthcare workers (Booth, 2016). This reduces investment expense returns as well because mHealth apps contain protected health information. The nurse informaticist must guide genuine health apps that will not lead to a breach of privacy rules. In addition, the mHealth details can only be made accessible to relevant care practitioners.
Opportunities and Challenges
In the introduction of health information and patient technology, nurse informaticist plays an important role. With this additional position, knowledge on health care becomes easier for caregivers and healthcare practitioners to access. The effect is an improved workflow that makes the management of complicated processes with minimal errors simple for the care teams (Booth, 2016). The mHealth technologies are best suited for monitoring patient outcomes, scheduling appointments and filling out medical prescriptions for nurses and interdisciplinary teams.
Older nurses who do not understand the value of patient technologies are unable to implement informatics improvements, which is one of the challenges. Another obstacle for the interdisciplinary team is the breach of the HIPAA Privacy Policy Rule. In addition, if unintended individuals have access to health information due to applications that are not valid, the interdisciplinary team will face other challenges.
Summary of Recommendations
The importance to healthcare entities looking to implement healthcare innovations has been underlined by this initiative. Therefore, health care providers are in the frontline of patient care to ensure the improvement is reached. Mobile health and EMR are some of the innovations introduced by both John Peter Smith and Texas Health Hospital. The technology can enhance the interaction between medical professionals and patients by connecting to the facility. I would like to recommend a number of suggestions for HR managers and CNO which include implementing emerging technology, and involving all healthcare providers. Opening daily conferences and monthly workshops to train and educate nurses. Finally, developing mentoring services to help nurses change their understanding and their perceptions towards emerging developments in healthcare.
References
Booth, R. (2016). Informatics and nursing in a post-nursing informatics world: Future directions for nurses in an automated, artificially-intelligent, social-networked healthcare environment. Canadian Journal of Nursing Leadership, 28(4), 61–69. Web.
Collins, S., Yen, P.-Y., Phillips, A., & Kennedy, M. K. (2017). Nursing informatics competency assessment for the nurse leader. JONA: The Journal of Nursing Administration, 47(4), 212–218. Web.
Hussey, P., Adams, E., & Shaffer, F. A. (2017). Nursing informatics and leadership, an essential competency for a global priority: eHealth. Nurse Leader, 13(5), 52–57. Web.