Nursing Informatics in Healthcare Essay

Nursing Informatics in Healthcare Essay

Nursing Informatics in Healthcare Essay

As a specialty, nursing informatics combines patient care with the integration of information technology. Gain a better understanding of the emergence of nursing informatics in healthcare, its elements, and current trends. Updated: 01/13/2022

Nursing Informatics Overview

Graham is a young nurse with a bright future in nursing informatics. He has earned his Bachelor’s Degree in nursing informatics and IT. Many nurses are taking a good look at the future of healthcare technology as a way to shape patient care and patient safety – and to assist the nursing staff in their shifts. But, there is so much more in this fast-growing field.

In the 1960s, a partnership began between healthcare and computer systems that has evolved into a whole new world for nurses, nursing care, and patients. In the beginning, more of the emphasis targeted financial needs, such as business applications for hospitals. But quickly, the groundbreaking changes were happening that take us to today; everywhere the patient is, a computer lies ready to gather all the information, store the information, and give the information back to the staff using tablets, iPads, PC’s, and applications for patients.

Nursing informatics is defined as a growing nursing specialty integrating information technology with the understanding of patient care delivery from the moment the patient presents for healthcare to the discharge and outpatient care of the same patient. Information is transmitted into a format the physician, nurse, and other specialties can use to diagnose and treat the patient. Then, we need to know how well we are doing. That’s where the data comes in: both while the patient is with the staff and continuing with more review after the patient goes home.

Nurses need information at their fingertips to care for the patient. Embedded into many of the current programs are medication information pages, procedural information pages, and essential information for evidenced-based practice guidelines. Evidenced-based practice is information from scientific research combined with expert clinical opinions to formulate the best plans of care for the patient with a condition or disease. Also inside the software and linked to the chart of a patient, the nurse can access policies and procedures for the hospital or clinic where they are employed. So, if they have questions, the nursing informatics personnel would make sure those pieces of information would be available.

Graham works in a fast-paced medical center with many departments, over 2,000 staff and residents who need information to make the best decisions for their patients. He listens to the staff, assists them with problems, and finds solutions for the best care of the patient. He reviews data collected from the electronic health record or EHR and shares with the medical and nursing staff at regular meetings.

Elements of Nursing Informatics

Nursing informatics are involved in the creation of pathways to collect patient information, share patient information, and then retrieve their information for those caring for the patient. Data collection is another valuable tool for the nursing staff, physicians, and administration in tracking which and where care was delivered, reviewing incidents affecting patient safety, and tracking performance compliance with policies and procedures. Research also requires data from the EHR. Nursing informatics specialists are resources for educating nurses, physicians, health information management (or HIM) professionals, and many others in the healthcare setting regarding the overall functions of the patient’s health record and the use of the data from the back end of the chart. All of the activities in the patient’s records must be kept confidential. This is an important aspect of care for the patient and carries a hefty fine for violating confidentiality. Nursing informatics plays a vital role in this protection by creating guidelines for information sharing, along with HIM.

The foundation of nursing informatics is described by using these terms:

Nursing Informatics in Healthcare Essay