The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies

The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies

Big data and big data analytics applications in healthcare have improved the efficiency of patient treatment and the management of health (Batko & Ślęzak, 2022). In this article, I will present a proposed technology project to improve the efficiency of nursing care. I will also identify the stakeholders the proposed project will impact, expected patient outcomes, the project’s tech requirements, the project team, their roles, and how the nurse informaticist role will be integrated into the project team. Do you need urgent assignment help ? Get in touch with us at eminencepapers.com.

The Proposed Project

My healthcare organization is a part of a healthcare system with operations across 15 states and expanding. It provides general and specialized care across various fields. Currently, the health organization has employed electronic medical records (EMRs) and a laboratory information management system (LIMs) to help manage patient health information and other practice data. However, the EMRs and the LIMs have also been shown to have their drawbacks, especially in sharing data and information records across the facility and the health care system.

EMRs and LIMs have proved to be limited in their application settings. Sharing records across the health care organization from one practice requires the health professionals to either print them and have them hand-delivered to other departments or have them scanned and mailed. The lack of a centrally accessible records management system has reduced the efficiency of workflow and brought about various inconsistencies and delays in the delivery of patient care. Delayed care has been identified as a factor in disease progression, which might contribute to the progression into severe disease phenotypes (Mousa et al., 2020). This may lead to unnecessary costs of care and prolonged stays, which may impact patient experiences and failure to meet the goals of care.

The proposed project is to implement an electronic health records (EHR) system that provides a central records management system accessible to all facility departments and across the entire healthcare system at any given time. The proposed EHR project will eliminate the need for department-specialized information management systems as it will combine the various systems, such as EMRs, LIMs, and other systems employed at the organization, into one health information management system. Therefore, this project will seek to improve the efficiency of documentation, the sharing of data and other patient health records, and the accessibility of such data and records across the health facility and the health care system.

Stakeholders Impacted by This Project

There are various stakeholders, including all end-users of the EHRs, after full implementation. The first stakeholders whom the project will directly impact are the clinicians across the various departments. Clinicians who are currently used to the EMR systems will need to switch to the new EHRs, which may disrupt their practice as well as patient planning. The organization’s billing department is also among the key stakeholders who the project will impact. Other stakeholders include the laboratory department, the healthcare organization’s management, the care planners, the health records department team, and the staff management team. Additionally, implementing the proposed EHR will also impact external stakeholders such as healthcare insurance providers, suppliers, and other healthcare organizations that the facility collaborates with to improve care services. Most importantly, patients are the key stakeholders the project will directly impact as the implementation of the proposed EHRs is to improve the efficiency of patient care and will also be required to interact with the implemented information management systems.

Expected Patient Outcome and Patient-Care Efficiency Improvements Linked to the Informatics Project

The fully functional EHR system, compared to EMR systems, is more accessible and interoperable. This means it can be integrated within health care and be able to communicate efficiently with other systems within the health care system. For medical data to be turned into meaningful and useful quality information and datasets that can be used to improve patient and health outcomes, seamless communication across IT and human systems using standardized data is required (Lehne et al., 2019). Through interoperability, healthcare systems can deliver quality, patient-centered, and value-based care that meets all the needs of the patients and the healthcare systems (Gavrilov et al., 2020). Research has also established that EHRs improve nurses’ cognitive work, impacting their capacity to efficiently individualize and contextualize information to make it clinically meaningful for better care (Wisner et al., 2019).

The proposed EHR will, therefore, improve documentation, data management, and sharing across the various departments and the entire healthcare system, impacting care coordination efforts. The proposed system will allow patients to access their records remotely, improving patient participation in their care planning and progress. These improvements are expected to improve patient care outcomes, their experiences, and the costs incurred in care. On the clinical side, fully functional EHRs are expected to improve the quality and safety of care, reduce strain on care providers by improving their ability to share data and coordinate remotely during patient care, and improve the efficiency of the entire healthcare delivery process.

Project Technology Requirements

The technical requirements for the EHRs project include hardware requirements, broadband requirements, user applications, and mobility requirements. The EHR system will require a broadband connection to support data sharing with other users and access to the cloud and other servers used for data storage and support for data and records access. The system requirements also include computers with access to the internet and processor speeds of over 2.5 GHz, 4GB or more RAM, substantial internal storage, and good screen resolution. The system also requires a good internet browser such as Chrome or Microsoft Edge. It is also functional in the Safari browser. In addition, the system requires an HD plus resolution for optimum function and experience for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.

Project Team, Roles, and How to Incorporate the Nurse Informaticist in the Project Team

The project team includes an EHR team leader who will manage and lead the entire project implementation process, various representatives of all healthcare professionals, including a physician, nurses, and departmental representatives, a project accountant to manage the financial aspects of the project, and the EHR builders who are responsible for the technical implementation of the project. The nurse informaticist is a critical member of the project team. The nurse informaticist role will be incorporated into the project team to advise the technical development team and ensure that the system is built around the end-user preferences and achieves the required usability. The nurse informaticist is also responsible for providing training to all other nurses and health care professionals on the use of the EHRs, as well as supporting data analysis and management of the system.

Conclusion

In conclusion, implementing a fully functional EHR system can improve the efficiency, safety, and quality of patient care with an impact on health and patient outcomes. However, it is important to consider the system requirements of the system selected, the affected stakeholders, and the team roles to successfully implement a functional EHR.

References

Batko, K., & Ślęzak, A. (2022). The use of Big Data Analytics in healthcare. Journal of Big Data, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/S40537-021-00553-4

Gavrilov, G., Vlahu-Gjorgievska, E., & Trajkovik, V. (2020). Healthcare data warehouse system supporting cross-border interoperability. Health Informatics Journal, 26(2), 1321–1332. https://doi.org/10.1177/1460458219876793/ASSET/IMAGES/LARGE/10.1177_1460458219876793-FIG2.JPEG

Lehne, M., Sass, J., Essenwanger, A., Schepers, J., & Thun, S. (2019). Why digital medicine depends on interoperability. Npj Digital Medicine 2019 2:1, 2(1), 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-019-0158-1

Mousa, A., Al-Taiar, A., Anstey, N. M., Badaut, C., Barber, B. E., Bassat, Q., Challenger, J. D., Cunnington, A. J., Datta, D., Drakeley, C., Ghani, A. C., Gordeuk, V. R., Grigg, M. J., Hugo, P., John, C. C., Mayor, A., Migot-Nabias, F., Opoka, R. O., Pasvol, G., Okell, L. C. (2020). The impact of delayed treatment of uncomplicated P. falciparum malaria on progression to severe malaria: A systematic review and a pooled multicentre individual-patient meta-analysis. PLOS Medicine, 17(10), e1003359. https://doi.org/10.1371/JOURNAL.PMED.1003359

Wisner, K., Lyndon, A., & Chesla, C. A. (2019). The electronic health record’s impact on nurses’ cognitive work: An integrative review. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 94, 74–84. https://doi.org/10.1016/

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To Prepare:

Review the concepts of technology application as presented in the Resources.

Reflect on how emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence may help fortify nursing informatics as a specialty by leading to increased impact on patient outcomes or patient care efficiencies.

The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies

The Assignment: (4-5 pages, not including the title and reference page)

In a 4- to 5-page project proposal written to the leadership of your healthcare organization, propose a nursing informatics project for your organization that you advocate to improve patient outcomes or patient-care efficiency. Your project proposal should include the following:

Describe the project you propose.

Identify the stakeholders impacted by this project.

Explain the patient outcome(s) or patient-care efficiencies this project is aimed at improving and explain how this improvement would occur. Be specific and provide examples.

Identify the technologies required to implement this project and explain why.

Identify the project team (by roles) and explain how you would incorporate the nurse informaticist into the project team.

Use APA format and include a title page and reference page.