Nursing Informatics in Health Care

Nursing Informatics in Health Care

Technological advances in healthcare have considerably influenced healthcare operationalizations and care approaches. Thus, it is imperative for nurses and other healthcare providers to familiarize themselves with these technologies. Nursing informatics bridges the gap in technological knowledge deficits by facilitating technology use among nurses. Knowing these technologies will ensure that nurses provide optimal, patient-centered, and timely interventions to their patients. This paper analyzes nursing informatics in healthcare, emphasizing the role of nurse informaticists, how nurse informaticists interact with other healthcare organizations, and the opportunities and challenges of integrating a nurse informaticist into interdisciplinary care teams.

Nursing Informatics and the Nurse Informaticist

Nursing informatics is a nursing discipline committed to quality patient care delivery through efficient and effective management of hospitals’ technical systems and data. Khezri & Abdekhoda (2019) describe nursing informatics as the practice and science under the nursing discipline that incorporates nursing information with technology to manage health data. Nursing informatics plays a role in reducing healthcare costs while improving healthcare outcomes. Its ability to leverage existing and emerging technologies and utilize them in managing health information makes it integral to overall care provision.

Nursing informaticists are specialists in nursing informatics. The American Medical Informatics Association outlines core areas where nurse informaticists work. They work as developers and designers of health information technologies to facilitate the flow of health information within the healthcare system. Due to their vast knowledge of various healthcare technologies, they act as educators, educating nurses and other members of interdisciplinary healthcare teams on existing health information technologies. They also act as researchers in healthcare with the mandate of working on research methodologies to convey new healthcare knowledge and evidence-based best practices into practice (Haupeltshofer et al., 2020). Nurse informaticists also play a role in presenting information and retrieving approaches that inform safe and patient-centered approaches to care. These diverse roles of nurse informaticists point to the need for this organization to consider this option.

Nurse Informaticists and Other Health Care Organizations

An exploration of other organizations’ experiences with nurse informaticists reinforces the significance of nurses informaticists in healthcare. Eastlane Hospital is a classic example of a hospital that has benefited considerably from integrating nurse informaticists. The hospital initially had trouble integrating electronic health records into its system. The hospital administration noted that the hospital employees complained of not understanding the system. Accordingly, the recruitment of a nurse informaticist team to the hospital and their subsequent incorporation into the clinical team saw them educate the hospital employees on the new technology.

Interactions between nurse informaticists and other organizational members were challenging at first. This was because the members did not seem to understand the roles of a nurse informaticist, and role confusion between nurse informaticists and the hospital IT team was evident. However, this was resolved by the development of an operationalization framework that saw nurse informaticists bridge communication processes between the IT department and the interdisciplinary healthcare teams. As healthcare technologies continue to emerge, having nurse informaticists in this organization will ensure seamless integration and transition into these technologies. This highlights the need for nurse informaticists in this organization.

Impact of Full Nurse Engagement in Health Care Technology

Patient Care

Engaging nurses in healthcare technology will have considerable impacts on patient care. Healthcare technologies provide nurses with advanced tools that improve patient care. Through health communication and information technologies, nurses can learn evidence-based best practices in care that improve their patient’s outcomes (Moore et al., 2020). Additionally, these technologies ensure an efficient flow of health information, thereby ensuring that nurses provide appropriate and timely care to their patients.

Protected Health Information (PHI)

Nurses’ engagement with technology can also enable them to provide better safeguards for the security, privacy, and confidentiality of protected health information. Besides, Park & Jeong (2021) assert that providers’ knowledge of technology use gives them a better sense of implementing the required security safeguards on PHI. Fostering communication between providers is the first strategy to protect PHI effectively. Effective communication provides a platform for educating providers on creating a security culture and the significance of protecting PHI. The creation of a security policy is also valuable in this regard. Policies that direct workflow using technological devices such as mobile phones and forbidding their use for sharing PHI for non-medical reasons may prevent breaches in the security, privacy, and confidentiality of PHI (Keshta & Odeh, 2021). Nurse informaticists can also work with other interdisciplinary team members to keep healthcare information systems updated, ensure that security settings are configured correctly and that data stored or transmitted through these systems are encrypted.

Workflow, Costs, and Return on Investment

Nurses’ engagement with technology will also have a positive effect on workflow. Healthcare information technologies ensure an efficient and effective flow of health information (Moore et al., 2020). Knowing these systems will therefore enhance nurses’ workflow within the care system. Engaging nurses in technology is a worthy investment. Recruiting nursing informaticists fetches significant financial considerations as the average salary of a nurse’s informaticist is slightly above 100,000 dollars (per a survey by HIMSS). However, this is a worthy investment with a significant return on investment. Besides, their role in facilitating technology use in healthcare will significantly reduce administration costs of healthcare, which in the long term will lower the overall cost of healthcare.

Opportunities and Challenges

The addition of a nurse informaticist will provide several opportunities for nurses and other caregivers. It will give them a platform to learn more about existing healthcare technologies and how they can leverage these technologies to improve patient care. Healthcare providers will also be able to utilize evidence-based practices that support patient-centered and safe approaches to care by including nurse informaticists in care provision. The addition of an informaticist’s role will also ensure seamless inter-professional workflow and communication facilitated by healthcare communication technologies. The inclusion of nurse informaticists may, however, present specific challenges. Role confusion with other IT team members, lack of organizational goodwill or rigidity of members to change, and lack of organizational leadership to oversee their integration into clinical teams may hinder their effectiveness.

Interdisciplinary team collaboration is necessary to improve quality outcomes through technology. Best practices in team collaborations, such as effective communication, role definition, information sharing, cooperation, and mutual respect between team members, may help team members work collaboratively to leverage existing technologies and optimize clinical outcomes. Organizational leadership also plays a role. They are responsible for steering the organization during change processing involving the implementation of various technologies in healthcare.

The significance of nurse informaticists in leveraging technology in information management warrants their addition to this care organization. As  Haupeltshofer et al. (2020) report, nurse informaticists will tailor available health information technologies to facilitate information flow within the hospital. They will also educate other nurses and caregivers on the effective use of available technologies. They will also be proactive in researching potential areas in the hospital information flow framework where breaches are likely to occur and recommend how to address them. All these functionalities are vital for this care organization.

Nursing informatics maintains significance in modern healthcare. Their role in leveraging technology use in information management makes them valuable in healthcare. Engaging nurses in technology positively impacts their patient care approaches and workflow and accords them a greater sense of protecting PHI. It is, therefore, important that care organizations engage nurses in technology use. The inclusion of nurse informaticists is the first step in engaging nurses in technology use. Their vast knowledge of healthcare technologies makes them valuable in this regard, as it presents opportunities for other nurses to better understand healthcare information technologies.

References

Haupeltshofer, A., Egerer, V., & Seeling, S. (2020). Promoting health literacy: What potential does nursing informatics offer to support older adults in the use of technology? A scoping review. Health Informatics Journal, 26(4), 2707–2721. https://doi.org/10.1177/1460458220933417.

Keshta, I., & Odeh, A. (2021). Security and privacy of Electronic Health Records: Concerns and challenges. Egyptian Informatics Journal, 22(2), 177–183. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eij.2020.07.003.

Khezri, H., & Abdekhoda, M. (2019). Assessing nurses’ informatics competency and identifying its related factors. Journal of Research in Nursing, 24(7), 529–538. https://doi.org/10.1177/1744987119839453.

Moore, E. C., Tolley, C. L., Bates, D. W., & Slight, S. P. (2020). A systematic review of the impact of Health Information Technology on Nurses’ Time. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 27(5), 798–807. https://doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocz231.

Park, H.-K., & Jeong, Y.-W. (2021). Impact of nursing professionalism on the perception of patient privacy protection in nursing students: Mediating effect of nursing informatics competency. Healthcare, 9(10), 1364. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare9101364.

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Write a 4-5 page evidence-based proposal to support the need for a nurse informaticist in an organization who would focus on improving health care outcomes.

Introduction
As you begin to prepare this assessment, you are encouraged to complete the Team Perspectives of the Nurse Informaticist activity. Completion of this will help you succeed with the assessment as you explore the nurse informaticist’s role from the different perspectives of the health care team. Completing activities is also a way to demonstrate engagement.

Nurses at the baccalaureate level in all practice areas are involved in nursing informatics through interaction with information management and patient care technologies. Nurses must not only demonstrate knowledge of and skills in health information and patient care technologies, but also how to use these tools at the bedside and organizational levels. Moreover, nurses need to recognize how information gathered from various health information sources can impact decision making at the national and state regulatory levels.

Scenario
For this assessment, assume you are a nurse attending a meeting of your state’s nurses association. A nurse informaticist conducted a presentation on her role and its impact on positive patient and organizational outcomes in her workplace. You realize that your organization is undergoing many technological changes. You believe this type of role could provide many benefits to your organization.

You decide to pursue proposing a nurse informaticist role in your organization. You speak to your chief nursing officer (CNO) and human resources (HR) manager, who ask you to prepare a 4–5 page evidence-based proposal to support the new role. In this way, they can make an informed decision as to whether the addition of such a role could justify the return on investment (ROI). They need your proposal before an upcoming fiscal meeting.​ This is not an essay, but instead, it is a proposal to create a new Nurse Informaticist position.

One important part of this assessment is the justification of the need for a nurse informaticist in a health care organization and references from relevant and timely scholarly or professional resources to support the justification for creating this nurse informaticist position. The term justify means to show or prove that the nurse informaticist position brings value to the organization. This justification must include evidence from the literature to support that this position will provide a return on investment for the organization.

Preparation
To successfully prepare for this assessment, you will need to complete these preparatory activities:

Review assessment resources and activities.
Conduct independent research on the nursing knowledge and skills necessary to interact with health information and patient care technology.
Focus your research on current resources available through peer-reviewed articles, professional websites, government websites, professional blogs, wikis, job boards, and so on.
Consult the BSN Program Library Research Guide for help in identifying scholarly and authoritative sources.
Interview peers in your network who are considered information technology experts.
Ask them about how information technology advances are impacting patient care at the bedside, at the organizational level, and beyond.
Proposal Format
The chief nursing officer (CNO) and human resources (HR) manager have asked you to include the following headings in your proposal and to be sure to address the bullets following each heading:

Nursing Informatics and the Nurse Informaticist
What is nursing informatics?
What is the role of the nurse informaticist?
Nurse Informaticists and Other Health Care Organizations
What is the experience of other health care organizations with nurse informaticists?
How do these nurse informaticists interact with the rest of the nursing staff and the interdisciplinary team?
IMPACT OF FULL NURSE ENGAGEMENT IN HEALTH CARE TECHNOLOGY
How does fully engaging nurses in health care technology impact:
Patient care?
Protected health information (security, privacy, and confidentiality)?
In this section, you will explain evidence-based strategies that the nurse informaticist and interdisciplinary team can use to effectively manage patients’ protected health information, particularly privacy, security, and confidentiality. Evidence-based means that they are supported by evidence from scholarly sources.
Workflow?
Costs and return on investment?
Opportunities and Challenges
What are the opportunities and challenges for nurses and the interdisciplinary team with the addition of a nurse informaticist role?
How can the interdisciplinary team collaborate to improve quality care outcomes through technology?
Summary of Recommendations
What are 3–4 key takeaways from your proposal about the recommended nurse informaticist role that you want the CNO and the HR manager to remember?
This is the section where the justification for the implementation of the nursing informaticist role is addressed. Remember to include evidence from the literature to support your recommendation.
Additional Requirements
Written communication: Ensure written communication is free of errors that detract from the overall message.
Submission length: 4–5 double-spaced pages, in addition to title and references pages.
Font: Times New Roman, 12 point.
Citations and References: Cite a minimum of three current scholarly and/or authoritative sources to support your ideas. In addition, cite a minimum of one current professional blog or website to support your central ideas. Current means no more than five years old.
APA formatting: Be sure to follow APA formatting and style guidelines for citations and references. For an APA refresher, consult the Evidence and APA page on Campus.
Competencies Measured
By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and scoring guide criteria:

Competency 1: Describe nurses’ and the interdisciplinary team’s role in informatics with a focus on electronic health information and patient care technology to support decision making.
Define nursing informatics and the role of the nurse informaticist.
Explain how the nurse collaborates with the interdisciplinary team, including technologists, to improve the quality of patient care.
Justify the need for a nurse informaticist in a health care organization.
Competency 2: Implement evidence-based strategies to effectively manage protected health information.
Explain evidence-based strategies that the nurse and interdisciplinary team can use to effectively manage patients’ protected health information (privacy, security, and confidentiality).
Competency 5: Apply professional, scholarly communication to facilitate use of health information and patient care technologies.
Follow APA style and formatting guidelines for citations and references.
Create a clear, well-organized, and professional proposal that is generally free from errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling.