Proposal – Nursing Informatics in Health Care

Proposal – Nursing Informatics in Health Care

Nursing Informatics and the Nurse Informaticist

Nursing informatics is a special area that mixes nursing knowledge with computer and information knowledge to handle and share data, information, understanding, and wisdom in nursing work. (Park & Park, 2022). The nurse informaticist is often considered the keystone to leveraging technology in advancing the work of nursing and patient care alike. This position serves as a liaison between the clinical staff and IT teams and conducts reviews of clinical processes to propose technology solutions. They take care of setting up and improving electronic health records and clinical information systems, in addition to training and helping staff on health IT systems.

Nurse informaticists also develop clinical decision support evidence-based tools, data quality, security, and interoperability specifications and guide projects or informatics activities in such fields. This paper is on a Nurse Informaticist position focused on improving patient education through digital platforms. This specialist will develop, execute, and enhance the means of digital tools and resources aimed at patient education.

Nurse Informaticists and other Health Care Organizations

Many healthcare organizations see the importance of nurse informaticists in enhancing patient care and results using technology. For example, at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, nurse informatics strongly contributed to the creation of the latter as part of a machine-learning algorithm to identify patients likely to experience imminent clinical deterioration (IPD) soon. This was started in 2018, and it has ensured that the patients receive interventional care earlier, improving their health. Nurse informaticists played a vital role in ensuring that the algorithm fit well into existing practice and also in educating staff about using the algorithm that had been developed (Escobar et al., 2020).

Kaiser Permanente employs nurse informaticists to maintain their patient portal and mobile app. This has engaged the patients and left them satisfied (Carini et al., 2021).The Mayo Clinic employs nurse informaticists in designing and managing digital patient education programs. This has empowered patients to better understand their health status and enabled them to manage their conditions independently ((Philpot et al., 2023).

In these organizations, informatics nurses collaborate with clinical teams, IT teams, and administration. They serve as an essential link between the technical and clinical domains, ensuring that the technology solution aligns with patient and provider needs. This demands time for various meetings with those involved, working on joint projects, and continuous communication.

Effects of Full Nurse Involvement in Healthcare Technology

When nurses fully use healthcare technology, especially digital platforms for patient education, it can greatly enhance patient care. It helps patients access timely and accurate health information. It facilitates education based on a patient’s condition and needs. Interactive multimedia enables the patient to better grasp and retain the given information. Remote monitoring and education facilitate the management of chronic diseases. Through reminders and education, it can also help improve patient compliance with medication regimens.
The nurse informaticist and his/her team should apply proven strategies to manage patients’ PHI while effectively using digital education platforms. This would entail enhanced access control with users’ authentication, end-to-end encryption of data at any time of transmission or storage, frequent security testing and checking, good training of staff on best practices around privacy and security, clarity on processes concerning obtaining consent from patients on the data to be collected and how they will use it, removing personally identifiable information from a patient’s data in a situation where it is possible, and safe cloud storage solutions that follow all the stipulations set by HIPAA.

Digital patient education platforms can streamline clinical workflows by automating the delivery of routine patient education materials, allowing nurses to easily document patient education activities, providing analytics on patient engagement with educational content, and integrating with EHRs to personalize education based on patient data. Further, while there is a cost to deploy digital patient engagement platforms, the potential return on investment (ROI) is seen in decreased hospital readmissions—reflecting positive patient self-care—internalizing lower phone inquiries, less call and travel time for in-person education, improved HCAHPS scores, and the possibility to improve reimbursement attached to patient engagement measures.

Opportunities and Challenges

The use of digital education platforms for patients comes with advantages and challenges. The advantages include better patient involvement and empowerment, a greater understanding of health and self-care skills, improved use of clinical staff time, insights from data to keep improving patient education, and the possibility of better results alongside lower healthcare costs. Challenges include ensuring all patients can access digital tools, keeping a personal touch in patient education, updating content to be current and based on facts, easily combining different technology systems, and measuring how digital education impacts patient results.

Subsequently, the interdisciplinary team can collaborate by forming a patient education committee with inter-professional representation from nursing, physicians, IT, patient experience, and health education specialists to address these challenges. They could hold regular patient focus groups to solicit feedback on the digital education tools, work with community organizations to help support these digital literacy and access challenges, be sure to have a robust content management system so that updates to education could be done with ease, and create clear methods to measure and analyze the impact of digital patient education on outcomes and further enhance the program.

Summary of Recommendations

In conclusion, one proposal is creating a dedicated position for a nurse informaticist, but one who specifically works on patient education supported by digital systems. Such a position is necessary because the field combines medical skills with technology knowledge to create useful and usable digital educational materials. Peltonen et al. (2023) indicated that healthcare organizations that employed the services of nurse informaticists had better quality of care, safer patient handling, and efficiency of care service delivery.

Another recommendation is developing an entire digital patient education solution that is integrated with EHR and offers patients personalized, multimedia-rich content. Further, the creation of a governance structure and interdisciplinary team to manage the digital patient education program and to support ongoing collaboration between clinical, IT, and administrative stakeholders. Data security and patient privacy must be ensured through the use of technical safeguards and staff training. Fennelly et al. (2020) suggested in their systematic review that one of the main reasons for more successful implementation and better adoption of health IT projects was the interdisciplinary team.

Finally, clear metrics will be needed to measure the impact of digital patient education to sustain such success in patient engagement, health outcomes, and organizational efficiency. If our organization invests money in this nurse informaticist position and other related digital patient education programs, better patient care with smoother work processes and reduced cost of care will be achieved. Other healthcare organizations show through their evidence how nurse informaticists are important to use technology in enhancing patient care and results. This role—the innovating well function of using technology to teach and involve our patients—will permit better health results and creating a more effective health system in this new digital organization of health.

References

Escobar, G. J., Liu, V. X., Schuler, A., Lawson, B., Greene, J. D., & Kipnis, P. (2020). Automated identification of adults at risk for in-hospital clinical deterioration. New England Journal of Medicine, 383(20), 1951–1960. https://doi.org/10.1056/nejmsa2001090

Fennelly, O., Cunningham, C., Grogan, L., Cronin, H., O’Shea, C., Roche, M., Lawlor, F., & O’Hare, N. (2020). Successfully implementing a national electronic health record: A rapid umbrella review. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 144(104281). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2020.104281

Peltonen, L.-M., Nibber, R., Lewis, A., Block, L., Pruinelli, L., Topaz, M., Perezmitre, E., & Ronquillo, C. (2019). Emerging professionals’ observations of opportunities and challenges in nursing informatics. Canadian Journal of Nursing Leadership, 32(2), 8–18. https://doi.org/10.12927/cjnl.2019.25965

Philpot, L. M., Sagar Dugani, Singla, A., DeZutter, M. A., & Ebbert, J. O. (2023). Digital care horizon: A framework for extending health care through digital transformation. PubMed, 1(3), 210–216. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mcpdig.2023.05.005

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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.

Proposal – Nursing Informatics in Health Care

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Introduction
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.

Preparation
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.

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

Review assessment resources and activities.
Review the focus of the new nurse informaticist position you will propose by examining the Assessment 01 Supplement: Nursing Informatics in Health Care [PDF] Download Assessment 01 Supplement: Nursing Informatics in Health Care [PDF]resource.
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.
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.

Review the focus of the new nurse informaticist position you will propose by examining the Assessment 01 Supplement: Nursing Informatics in Health Care [PDF] Download Assessment 01 Supplement: Nursing Informatics in Health Care [PDF]resource.
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.

Proposal Format
The chief nursing officer (CNO) and human resources (HR) manager have asked you to include the headings below in your proposal and to be sure to address the bullets following each heading. Remember that you will emphasize the focus of the new nurse informaticist position as described in the Assessment 01 Supplement: Nursing Informatics in Health Care [PDF] Download Assessment 01 Supplement: Nursing Informatics in Health Care [PDF]resource.

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.