Assessment 1: Nursing Informatics in Healthcare
Name
Capella University
NURS-FPX4040: Managing Health Information & Technology
Instructor’s Name
August 13th, 2024
Nursing Informatics in Health Care
Telehealth technologies are crucial in the current evolving healthcare context to support the delivery of care to underserved and vulnerable populations who are often physically accessing healthcare services (Reid et al., 2021). Through telehealth, one can maintain long-distance clinical care and education, making this an ideal solution to distance, the inadequacy of healthcare resources, and healthcare inequalities. Telehealth has become increasingly visible as a way to address the needs of rural populations, as well as concerns of efficiency and cost for metropolitan healthcare institutions when addressing specialty care and chronic disease management (Peltonen et al., 2023). To fully benefit from this modality of healthcare practice, the hiring of a nurse informaticist for this purpose is highly necessary. This assessment will be focused on implementing telehealth technologies to improve the health status of people and ensure that all patients no matter where they are located can receive quality and affordable care.
Nursing Informatics and the Nurse Informaticist
What is Nursing Informatics?
An independent field of study that combines information technology, nursing, and analytical research is called nursing informatics. They support its focus on the administration and dissemination of information, expertise, and prudent nursing practices in clinical settings. Gaining information structure, procedure, and technology, this field helps nurses, patients, consumers, and other health professionals in the decision-making of their part and the whole health setting (Byrne, 2021). Therefore, nursing informatics can be described as a specialised field that focuses on the optimal management of information within the nursing practice to enhance the health of populations, communities, families, and everyone in them.
Nursing informatics connects technologies, such as clinical decision support systems (CDSS), telehealth tools, electronic health records (EHRs), and others. In this way, it serves a critical function of ensuring the proper delivery of care to patients because healthcare providers preserve the essential assets to improve the nutritious, appropriate, safe, timely, equal, and patient-centred data that is fundamental for individual and communal health (Von Gerich et al., 2024).
What is the Role of the Nurse Informaticist?
A nurse informaticist deals with communication technology and expertise as a registrant-focused nurse. Nurse informaticists act as a bridge between medical care and technology and make sure that the technology utilised in medicine improves patients’ outcomes and accelerates the processes within healthcare institutions (Kleib et al., 2021). Nurse informaticists are essential in the strategic placement and implementation of healthcare information systems ensuring that they are meaningful to the end-users. They add value by utilising the data collected, training on technology, assisting in clinical decisions, and protecting data privacy and adherence to healthcare laws and guidelines.
The Role of Nurse Informaticists in Interdisciplinary Collaboration
Nurse informaticists integrate technology into clinical environments, altering existing systems to match specific healthcare needs and make patient care more effective. Thus, they increase leadership opportunities and technology experiences for professionals to help them expand their professional growth through developing teamwork, and communication (Blažun Vošner et al., 2020). These entities make judgments based on data and analysis through the employment of data analysis and decision support systems, override clinical processes, and quest for enhancement of quality.
The healthcare resistance to change in adopting new technologies can be overcome by adequate communication and training regarding the advantages of informatics in enhancing the quality of care (Peltonen et al., 2023). Regular training is required to ensure that personnel are up to date with new technologies and technology adoption and support is resource intensive and should be planned for. Moreover, keeping data secure when using more tools includes working with IT departments to mitigate existing and future issues and meet compliance requirements.
It is helpful to include all team members in decisions about which and how healthcare technologies are employed so everyone has use-specific tools and remaining issues addressed. Nurse informatics employs data to foster the formulation of integrated care delivery plans that incorporate technologies to work in tandem with other departments to improve patient treatment and minimise mistakes (Byrne, 2021). Team meetings are effective in making sure that the whole team is familiar with the new technologies we advocate for. Core concepts of CONs involve interactions and feedback between the clinical staff and informatics specialists to address issues in real time and to continuously refine the use of technologies.
Justifying the Need for a Nurse Informaticist in a Healthcare Organization
Some examples of technologies include Electronic Health Records (EHRs) whereby nurse informatics is involved in improving technologies to obtain accurate, timely, and personalised patient care, which subsequently leads to better results of health and Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS) (Bergren et al., 2021). This assessment affirms that organisations with effective integration of nursing informatics record fewer incidences of patient harm and have more satisfied patients. In this way, nurse informatics helps to reduce office hours and shift the focus of nursing staff on the most essential services, satisfying the client’s needs, as well as optimising the use of technology solutions in the clinical context. Available data proves that informatics can be used to enhance the performance of the nurses’ work processes and decrease expenses (Byrne, 2021). Further, nurse informatics enhances data security and security policies by the proper handling of patient data and observing regulatory requirements such as HIPAA through appropriate measures such as role-based access control, data audits, and encryption to guard against unauthorised access to patients’ data, and to reduce instances of data exploits.
Evidence-Based Strategies for Managing Protected Health Information
Patients’ care, data management, and staff productivity have augmented noticeably in several healthcare organisations after the introduction of staff nurse informaticists. Thus, nurse informaticists can help simplify the clinical processes, reduce mistakes, or ensure that technologies can be used optimally (Reid et al., 2021). They are very central to clinicians’ utilisation of CDSS and EHR which enhances patient outcomes and safety. They are dependent on other actors, such as the nurse staff and the IT department, the so-called nurse informaticists. They collaborate with the nurses to ensure that technology resources are friendly as well as meeting clinical needs (Kelley, 2023). As well, they work in conjunction with clinical cross-functional teams of physicians, pharmacists, and administrators to ensure proper planning of technology implementation and interaction between the varied departments in the facility. They are also involved in staff development, problem-solving concerning the system, and identifying means of maximising technology in clinical areas.
Improved patient’ status is the ultimate benefit that arises from the effective implementation of HIT by nurses (Bergren et al., 2020). Increased quality and up-to-date information allow for the proper resolution, timely response, and reduction of errors. CDSS as well as EHRs help nurses deliver evidence-based practice which enhances patient satisfaction and general safety in health.
It discusses the advantages of involving nurses in the management of healthcare technology. As they contribute to the security of patient information (Kelley, 2023). The interdisciplinary teams and nurse informaticists can use evidence-based strategies to improve and ensure the patient data, including encryption, reducing access to the data, and doing routine checks with the data. Privacy and security can only be achieved when the nurses are well conversant with legislation and policies concerning data and information privacy (Liu et al., 2024).
Technology enhances the operational efficiency of workflows by cutting on paperwork or third-party repetitive activities and engaging in real-time communications among the health care providers. Consequently, productivity increases, and the nurses have the opportunity to spend more time with the patients than on paperwork. To enhance the efficiency of processes, nurse informatics needs to integrate technologies that correspond to the needs of the nursing team (Värri et al., 2020).
The benefits of continued use of healthcare technology and effective nurse informaticists also comprise the reduction of the direct and indirect costs affiliated with medical errors besides improved and enhanced patient care even though it calls for the acquisition of capital investment. Productivity enhancement, resource optimization, and enhancement of patient satisfaction serve to demonstrate the organisation’s efficiency, which serves as an additional shield to the organisation’s financial base (Matney et al., 2021). They are directly involved in making sure that technology is utilised correctly and in identifying cases where cost savings can be achieved, and thus they are mostly involved in these instances.
NURS FPX 4040 Assessment 1 Conclusion
It is critical to adopt the paradigm of a nurse informaticist in the healthcare environment in order to maintain patient information, enhance systematic care processes’ functioning, and, fundamentally, enhance patient outcome. Nurse informatics with adequate resources can decrease healthcare delivery disparity and enhance underrepresented group care through telehealth technologies (Von Gerich et al., 2024). Nurse informaticists can improve patient satisfaction and increase the effectiveness of the organisation by using effective interventions and engaging in stakeholders’ collaboration. The role itself ensures continuing improvement of services within healthcare facilities by combining information technology with the delivery of healthcare services.
NURS FPX 4040 Assessment 1 References
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