Module 8 Written Assignment – Theories Guiding Nursing practice
Joy Eki
Module 08 Assignment – The Role of the Nurse Informaticist
Nursing Informatics
Nursing Informatics is the “science and training that merges nursing, its data, and understanding, with information and communication technologies to advance the health of people, families, and societies worldwide.” (IMIA Special Interest Group on Nursing Informatics 2008). The application of nursing informatics understanding allows all healthcare practitioners to accomplish patient-centered care.
Nurse informaticians operate as creators of communication and information technologies, teachers, researchers, chief nursing officers, top information officers, software engineers, execution consultants, policy developers, and business owners to offer healthcare.
1.) Identify various roles of nursing informatics.
- Role of Nursing Informatics:
- Concept representation and standards to support evidence-based practice, research, and education
- Data and communication standards to build an interoperable national data infrastructure
- Research methodologies to disseminate new knowledge into practice
- Information presentation and retrieval approaches to support safe patient-centered care
- Information and communication technologies to address inter-professional workflow needs across all care venues
- Vision and management for the development, design, and implementation of communication and information technology
- Definition of healthcare policy to advance the public’s health
- Role of Nurse Informaticist:
Nursing informatics specialist –
Execute and evaluate informatics systems.
Train nursing and other healthcare attendants on recent systems.
Act as a bridge between nursing and IT units.
Clinical nurse informatics specialist –
Establish and control computer methods and networks.
Consider how the systems serve and provide staff understanding how to use them.
Educate the team and respond to any questions.
Director/Manager of Clinical Informatics –
Teach a team or unit and oversee the performance of computer-based healthcare tools.
Examine data to guarantee systems are providing the best possible results. Supply training and other advice to staff.
Chief nursing informatics officer –
Led a nursing informatics department. Prepared, developed, and oversaw computer-based healthcare delivery systems. Oversee project implementation with a nursing focus.
Informatics Consultant –
Counsel companies on healthcare technology that can assist them in achieving better patient results. Help companies execute the technology and enlighten staff.
Clinical Applications Specialist –
Train nursing and other healthcare teams on new technology.
Guide teams on how to use technology and answer questions.
Nurse Educator/Instructor –
Educate aspiring informatics nurses on how technology can enhance patient care effects.
2.) Describe specific settings within your community where nursing informatics could be used.
Nursing informatics is widely operated in rural health departments in our society. It delivers support, communication, and collaboration among physicians, community health nurse, and clients/patients. Nursing informatics is in barangay health centers for recording and updating data of the individuals in the society.
Municipal Health Office also operates it to monitor and follow the community’s health rate. It supports community health workers perform an effective and timely assessment that involves monitoring and tracking the health status of populations, including determining and preventing illness outbreaks and epidemics.
3.) Identify two Nursing Informatics organizations or journals to give attendees more information.
The American Nursing Informatics Association (ANIA)
ANIA was founded in 1982 as the Capital Area Roundtable on Informatics in Nursing (CARING). CARING was developed and organized by nurses in 1982 as a non-profit undertaking to provide a forum for advancing automated healthcare information systems. In 1992 the American Nursing Informatics Association was formed in Southern California to provide networking, education, and information resources that enrich and strengthen the roles of nurses in the field of informatics.
ANIA Mission: To advance nursing informatics through education, research, and practice in all roles and settings.
ANIA Vision: To be the organization of choice to advance nursing informatics.
The American Nursing Informatics Association (ANIA) is the association of professional nurses and associates who:
- They are committed to their specialty of integrating nursing science, computer science, and information science to manage and communicate data, information, knowledge, and wisdom in nursing and informatics practice.
- Identify informatics practice as a specialty that is essential to the delivery of high-quality and cost-effective health care.
- They are committed to their professional development and actively seek to engage in a community of like-minded professionals.
- Use informatics to improve the health of populations, communities, families, and individuals by optimizing information management and communication.
Alliance for Nursing Informatics (ANI)
The Alliance for Nursing Informatics (ANI), cosponsored by American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) and Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), advances nursing informatics leadership, practice, education, policy, and research through a unified voice of nursing informatics organizations. We transform health and healthcare through nursing informatics and innovation. ANI is a collaboration of organizations representing over 20,000 nurse informaticists and bringing together 25 distinct nursing informatics groups globally. ANI crosses academia, practice, industry, and nursing specialty boundaries and collaborates with the more than 4 million nurses in practice today.
Journal of Informatics Nursing (JIN)
The Journal of Informatics Nursing (JIN) is the official publication of the American Nursing Informatics Association (ANIA). The digital journal is published quarterly for members of ANIA. Each issue offers a continuing nursing education (CNE) activity, regular columns, and a variety of feature articles on various topics impacting nurse informaticists. Delivered as a digital edition, JIN allows readers to bookmark content, print resources, and share information effortlessly.
Online Journal of Nursing Informatics (OJNI)
Powered by the HIMSS Foundation and the HIMSS Nursing Informatics Community, the Online Journal of Nursing Informatics is a free, international, peer-reviewed publication published three times a year and supports all functional areas of nursing informatics. The journal was launched in 1996, with a readership spanning over 49 countries. The Online Journal of Nursing Informatics is an open-access journal. All content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles or use them for any other lawful purpose without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author.
4.) Explain how the building blocks of Nursing Informatics prepare nurses for practice.
The healthcare delivery environment is dramatically changing, and nursing has emerged amid these revolutionary changes. Healthcare providers are expected to be able to provide safe, competent care in a highly technical and digital environment. Today’s nursing requires nurses to be constantly aware of new developments, medications, and technologies, among others. With the influx of patients into the medical system, nurses are more essential than ever to keep up. A central theme in this new healthcare arena is the use of information systems and technologies to improve the quality and safety of patient care (TIGER, 2007).
Nurses represent the most significant number of health professionals, working in virtually all settings where patient care is received. This includes both inpatient and outpatient settings, as well as long-term care, hospice, public health, and emergency settings, to name a few. In addition to providing direct nursing services, nurses are the coordinators of each patient’s care through their training and responsibilities. Whether reviewing a patient’s health history, documenting an assessment, or researching evidence-based guidelines for patient care, nurses are the consumers, purveyors, and brokers of information (Health IT Workforce, 2012).
BUILDING BLOCKS OF NURSING INFORMATICS
- Nursing Science
According to McGonigle and Mastrian (2009), nursing science is the ethical application of knowledge acquired through education, research, and practice to provide services and interventions to patients in order to maintain, enhance or restore their health; to advocate for health, and to acquire process, generate and disseminate nursing knowledge to advance the nursing profession. Turley (1996) suggests that nursing science is the foundation of the other sciences. Nursing science is the raison d’être of nursing informatics, and without the needs and context of nursing science, nursing informatics would have no purpose (Jones, 2007). Nursing is an information-intensive profession.
Nursing Science prepares Nurses for practice in using Nursing Informatics
Nursing science teaches nurses the steps of utilizing information, applying knowledge to a problem, and acting with wisdom form the basis of nursing practice science. Nurses acquire data and information in bits and pieces and then transform the information into knowledge which in turn is used to develop the profession.
- Information Science
Information science studies information and how people use it within an organization. It involves studying the application and usage of information and knowledge in organizations and the interaction between people, organizations, and information systems. It is an extensive, interdisciplinary science that integrates features from cognitive science, communication science, computer science, library science, and social sciences.
- Information Science prepares Nurses for practice in using Nursing Informatics
Information science provides the principles for nurses and helps them understand the input, processing, output, and feedback of data and information through technology integration in the nursing profession with a focus on comprehending the perspective of the clients/patients involved and then applying information technology in the medical field as needed.
- Computer science
Computer science is a branch of engineering that studies the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their implementation and application in computer systems (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2009).
Computer science prepares Nurses for practice in using Nursing Informatics
Computer science offers valuable tools that can facilitate the acquisition and manipulation of data and information by nurses, who can synthesize these into an ever-evolving knowledge and wisdom base. Computer Science involves the use of computer hardware.
5.) Examine defining characteristics from the scope of practice for nursing informatics.
Efficiency
Nursing informatics enables healthcare organizations to transform data into information that helps healthcare practitioners, such as nurses and physicians, deliver the best possible patient outcomes. It combines nursing science, systems-driven analytics, and information science to identify, capture, manage, and share healthcare data. A key aim of nursing informatics is to provide clinicians responsible for health care decisions with timely, accurate patient health data to deliver patient-centered care and improve outcomes.
Innovativeness
Using technological innovations, nurses can help provide a comprehensive view of the patient, with easier access to information and support for clinical decision-making. Today, nursing informatics simplifies documentation and automates the transmission of patient data via connected devices to provide access to nurses, physicians, and patients. All these innovations help nurses provide the best care possible for their patients.
Flexibility
Working as a nurse informaticist is a departure from the usual bedside care usually associated with nurses. Nursing informatics requires nurses to also work as developers of communication and information technologies and as educators, researchers, software engineers, policy developers, and more.
Careers in nursing informatics include several varying responsibilities. The Health Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conducted a nursing informatics workforce survey, revealing that the three most prominent responsibilities are system implementation, optimization, and development.
Promising
The success of nursing informatics supports a promising future in its application to nursing practice. Studies show that nursing information systems improve quality through better nursing documentation processes, enhanced patient care planning, and optimized workflows.
Futuristic
The success of nursing informatics supports a promising future in its application to nursing practice. In case study after case study, evidence demonstrates that nursing informatics positively impacts the quality of care. The results of one study show that nursing information systems improved quality through better nursing documentation processes, enhanced patient care planning, and optimized workflows. Another case study shows the correlation between the technology used to administer medications and reductions in medication errors, which, in addition to improving patient safety, reduced anxiety in nurses and increased job satisfaction.
6.) Describe the educational requirements for the role.
Nurse informaticists blend a nurse’s focus on patient care with the insights of health informatics.
Required Education
Obtaining a degree in nursing from an accredited program is the first step to becoming a registered nurse (RN). An associate degree in nursing (ADN) or a diploma will sometimes suffice, though some employers require a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN). A bachelor’s program generally requires four years to complete and offers additional education in physical and social sciences, communication, leadership, and critical thinking.
A master’s degree or additional education in nursing informatics may be needed. A 2017 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) survey reported that over 57% of informatics nurse respondents had a postgraduate degree. The HIMSS survey found that 66% of nursing informaticists had a master’s-level degree in 2020. Among informaticists with a master’s degree, 27% had a Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) in nursing informatics.
The role of a nurse informaticist merges the art of caring for people and computer science. A nurse informaticist manages and communicates data, information, and knowledge in the nursing practice. This career may attract certain personality types since specific skills and characteristics can be necessary to excel in such a unique field.
Skills and Characteristics
There are some qualities, in particular, that facilitate work as an informatics nurse, including:
Technologically Proficient – Electronic documentation of patient records and new advancements in information technology (IT) have become invaluable assets to workflow in healthcare settings. It is the responsibility of informatics nurses to effectively synchronize and exchange clinical and technical information to support and coordinate patient care in an efficient workflow.
Communicative – Superior communication skills can be essential for informatics nurses, as they help others interpret the technology utilized in the healthcare environment. These nurses design and deliver training regarding technology, so clear and concise instruction is critical.
Organized: Since patient documentation is so vital, an informatics nurse should be organized to analyze and record data logically and coherently. Flow charts are a commonly-used tool in this profession to help assemble information about a patient’s needs, improve information accuracy, and enhance the quality of patient care.
6.) Analyze the impact nurse informatics has had on healthcare delivery.
According to McGonigle and Mastrian (2008), nursing informatics impacts the health care system and the nursing profession in many ways, this includes:
- Nursing Informatics digitizes paper charting into interoperable electronic charting, decreasing documentation time, and relieving nurses from writing on and handling papers, thus creating a paperless environment.
- Nursing informatics eliminates ambiguity, redundancy, and the tedious process of documentation.
- Nursing informatics reduces turnaround time. The turnaround time starts from when a request is made to when it is fully accomplished. For example, laboratory results can be sent directly to the nurses’ station with an E-mail, so more time is available for client care.
- Nursing informatics impacts the quality and cost of health care.
- Optimizes information management and communication among healthcare providers.
Impact of nursing informatics on the nursing profession:
- Computer information systems prevent nurses from making medication errors.
- Computer order entry systems help nurses easily interpret orders from the physician in the management of a patient.
- There is better collaboration and sharing of patient information with other healthcare providers.
- Nurses perform better assessments and monitoring of patients’ diseases and ailments.
- It helps nurses utilize research to provide evidence-based care.
- It allows nurses to work faster, be more intelligent, and be more competent in whatever they do.
7.) How has it specifically impacted patient outcomes?
The healthcare information revolution is upon us. Healthcare providers have more access than ever to electronic health records, diagnostics, and treatment plans. Clinical communication and collaboration platforms make it easier to manage healthcare workflows, improve coordination, and enhance patient outcomes. Systems integration and data access mean that information and analysis are more vital than ever.
As the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) says:
“The informatics nurse is part of the delivery of care, the building of knowledge, skills, and experience in using information technology. They often lead clinical informatics committee meetings that have a major influence on nurses in assisting them in coordinating all the multifaceted technology activities in regards to patient care, documentation, and safety.”
How Nursing Informatics Improve Patient Care
Aligning Nursing Best Practice with Clinical Workflows and Care
Nursing informatics is focused on the best ways to achieve good patient outcomes – it is about applying the overall process and best practices to maximize patient care wherever possible. As a result, nurse informaticists are often involved in process design, clinical workflow reviews, and new diagnostics and treatment plans. They consider the various options for providing care and use objective facts and analysis to determine the actions that will lead to the most patient-centered, value-based care.
Improving Clinical Policies, Protocols, Processes, and Procedures
Data is the lifeblood of nursing informatics. That data and information can be used to measure the success of the various protocols, processes, and procedures used in a healthcare organization. A nurse informaticist will measure and analyze how specific parts of the organization are performing, focusing on the resulting patient outcomes.
Providing Training and Learning Based on Objective Data
One of the most valuable ways a nursing informaticist can enhance patient outcomes is through providing training to clinical staff. They can use data to identify endemic issues in a healthcare organization and consult on how to resolve them. These learnings can be integrated with onboarding new staff, ongoing in-house training, or external education and certification. Nursing informaticists can help to create highly-targeted educational programs to deal with specific gaps between ability and provider expectations.
Selecting and Testing New Medical Devices
Connected IT medical devices can provide vast amounts of health data on patients. Nursing informaticists are ideally positioned to understand the actual value of that data and provide recommendations on how it can be recorded, accessed, and used. Involving informaticists in selecting medical devices will ensure you have additional criteria for understanding how device data can inform diagnostics, treatment plans, and, ultimately, patient outcomes.
Reducing Medical Errors and Costs
Nursing informaticists can reduce the chance of medical errors in a healthcare organization and associated costs. A combination of staff training, process improvement, and best practice will enhance the quality of care and limit patient risks.
Enhancing End-to-End Treatment and Continuity of Care
A patient’s care may involve several areas, many teams, and dozens of individuals. Nursing informaticists can create protocols and processes to ensure proper communication and interactions between departments, groups, individuals, and patients. They can help healthcare employees to seek out “one view of the truth” through electronic health records so everyone has the context and insight they need to ensure excellent continuity of care.
8.) Describe the future of Nursing Informatics and its impact on healthcare delivery.
Informatics is changing the face of healthcare. As technology advances, healthcare organizations and providers can collect, analyze and leverage data more effectively, influencing how care is delivered, resources are managed, and teams operate daily. You would be hard-pressed to find an aspect of medicine that has yet to be touched by the mass collection and analysis of data that has been ushered in by the Information Age.
One specific area that health informatics significantly impacts is the practice of nursing. Though the mission of nursing remains unchanged, the daily work of these professionals is strongly influenced by informatics, with particular attention to the accuracy and communication of patient data and care.
The nursing profession is rapidly changing to keep up with advancements and new challenges in the healthcare field. As direct caregivers, nurses are on the front lines of patient care and consequently often feel the impact of changes in best practices more immediately than other healthcare professionals. Spyros Kitsiou, Assistant Professor of Biomedical and Health Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, reported that there are three specific challenges that healthcare is currently facing:
- The aging population
- The incidence and prevalence of chronic diseases
- The shortage of doctors and nurses.
Though these problems are diverse, there is a solution that addresses all three – DATA. Spyros Kitsiou said:
“A lot of these challenges can be supported by the recreation of information and communication technologies, particularly as hospitals become increasingly interested in reducing their costs and shifting care from hospital care to home care.
Information and communication technologies, mobile health devices, and wearable technologies are all becoming very important for supporting remote patient monitoring and home care.”
In nursing, as with healthcare in general, informatics addresses daily challenges, significantly impacting how nurses function in patient care. One of the primary ways that informatics has changed nursing practice is through documentation. Gone are the days of paper charts that had to be meticulously updated with handwritten notes. Today, nurses are more likely to input letters into electronic health records and other systems that keep a patient’s medical history up-to-date and easily accessible.
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society reported that as a result of electronic charting, nurses could obtain information quickly and efficiently, using the information to improve daily workflow. Storing the information electronically is more readily available to all care team members, including the physician, other care providers, and staff teams at other healthcare organizations that the patient may visit.
Health informatics is also an essential part of care coordination in nursing. The ability to track staffing, workflow, and communication can help nurses to identify areas where current processes can be improved. This can also help ensure that staffing levels remain adequate, which is critical for providing patients with the best care. If the nurse-to-patient ratio drops too low, patients are more likely to suffer adverse results. Maintaining adequate levels helps nurses provide the best care daily without burning out.
Evidence-based practices have long been an essential part of nursing. Today, determining those best practices involves the use of health informatics. Analyzing the mass quantities of data collected regarding patient care and outcomes helps to determine how best to treat these conditions and situations in the future. The more data collected and analyzed, the more accurate the resulting conclusions tend to be, providing the best possible information for determining how best to care for patients in the future.
