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

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

Technological advances continue to redefine global operationalizations. The dawn of health information technologies has given insights into their significance in perpetuating effective care by streamlining the flow of health information. In a dynamic landscape where clinical complexities continue to challenge normative approaches to healthcare delivery, these technologies preserve the role of quality and safety maintenance (Astier et al., 2020). In chronic care, health information technologies provide divergent approaches to quality and safety assurance. Utilizing diverse health information technologies, the chronic care model maintains effectiveness in optimizing clinical outcomes and patient well-being. Nursing informatics plays a role in this respect. Their expertise, position in healthcare, and role in bridging the gap between providers and various information systems make them valuable in chronic care. This proposal highlights the significance of nursing informatics in chronic care, detailing the stakeholders involved in the project, the outcomes it aims to improve, and the technologies required.

Description of the Proposed Project

Chronic disorders remain a global health concern. These illnesses have been implicated in significant morbidity, mortality, and increased cost of healthcare. They account for over 80% of all reported deaths across the globe. In the US, over half of the population has at least one form of chronic illness (Ansah & Chiu, 2023). Despite substantial spending on the comprehensive management of these illnesses, their impact on the quality of life and community wellness is still evident globally. They are a major cause of frequent hospital visits, increased number of hospital stay days, and skyrocketing healthcare costs.

The chronic care model emphasizes the need for sustained care delivery to persons with this illness. However, due to care gaps attributed to provider shortages, limited financial resources, and proximity being apparent, managing these illnesses remains challenging. An aspect of chronic care that continues to be problematic to healthcare systems across the globe is the care continuum for patients with chronic illnesses (Angwenyi et al., 2019). The disintegration of care services that is sometimes ingrained in home-based care remains a contributory factor for health deterioration and quality compromise in chronic care. Health information technologies provide a convenient yet effective approach to chronic care. They allow for remote caring, thereby bridging the care gap accustomed to proximity. In addition, they help reduce healthcare costs by eliminating the need for frequent hospital visitations. Their ability to guarantee contact between providers, healthcare institutions, and resources with the patients further speaks to their value in chronic care (Mayston et al., 2020). Thus, it is necessary to integrate these technologies into the continuum of care for patients with chronic illnesses.

Stakeholders Impacted by the Project

The pursuit of integrating health information technologies into chronic care draws multiple stakeholders. The first stakeholders, and perhaps the most important, are the patients. Patients will be the most impacted population. This is because they are directly targeted with the project. In this respect, they will be expected to learn to use, possess, and adopt the available health information technologies. The project also impacts healthcare providers. Since care continuum processes and chronic care management utilize a collaborative paradigm, caregivers from diverse medical disciplines will be involved. The healthcare administration will also be involved. As administrators, healthcare leaders, and pioneers of change management, they will be expected to guide valuable change processes that will ensure better acceptability of these technologies. This will include funding the training programs, targeted at ensuring capacity and knowledge expansion pertaining to the use of these technologies, making the required technologies available, creating excitement about these technologies to the staff, and overseeing the implementation of these programs. Other stakeholders involved include public health agencies such as the CDC and health and wellness groups. Their role, in this respect, is to educate communities on the effectiveness of the available technologies and how they can leverage them to promote and preserve their health.

Patient Outcomes the Project Aims to Improve

Integrating health information technologies in the care continuum for chronic illnesses is expected to lower the cost of healthcare, reduce hospital visitations, improve the quality of life, and increase the survival rates of these patients. Health information technologies allow for remote care. Through remote caring, caregivers can advise their patients on aspects of their health, the need for hospital visitations, and self-management interventions (Wienert, 2019). Cost reduction is often due to improved wellness attributed to contact with the healthcare systems, improved self-management, and the elimination of the logistical costs associated with visiting the hospital (Wienert, 2019). The improved quality of life for patients under constant monitoring through remote care is demonstrated by recovery and restoration of functionalities in patients with chronic illnesses. Albeit remotely, caregivers can influence aspects of patients’ wellness, such as self-management interventions. This includes the patient’s engagement in health promotional activities, adherence to medication, and utilization of the available community resources targeted at promoting their health. This may help in increasing their survival rates (Wienert, 2019). Overall, health information technologies enhance patients’ accountability in self-care, thus providing a better guarantee for health and wellness.

Technologies Required to Implement the Project

Diverse health information technologies can be utilized when implementing the project. Remote patient monitoring systems such as telehealth are a technology that can be used in this respect. This tool allows for wireless communication between healthcare providers and their patients. The teleconferencing technique enables Facetime communications and can be leveraged for assessment purposes. Integral to the use of telehealth is the capacity of patients and providers to use this tool. Education may be necessary where gaps are apparent. Another technology that may be necessary is the electronic health records (EHR) system. EHRs are digital paper charts that capture valuable information. Integrating telehealth into EHR may be necessary to enable the quick translation of information from telehealth devices to those in EHR (Ward et al., 2023). Wearable devices can also be used in case the underlying illness is somatic. These devices allow for real-time data acquisition on aspects of patient health.

The Project Team

The project team will be composed of diverse personnel. These include nurses, nurse informaticists, physicians, pharmacists, psychologists, social workers, and healthcare administrators. Nurses, physicians, and pharmacists will monitor and provide valuable health information to patients. In addition, nurses will interrogate aspects of patients’ care, such as their compliance with their medication and recommendations from caregivers. Next, physicians will interrogate aspects of the disease and whether or not the patients are responding to therapy. Further, counselors will assess the clients’ mental wellness, while social workers will be tasked with coordinating the clients’ utilization and adoption of various community resources. Nurse informaticists will also play a role in this regard. Their experience and expertise will allow them to coordinate the use of various health information technologies, appraise these technologies, educate patients and caregivers on their use, and ensure their efficiency in addressing the problem at hand. They will, therefore, be required to work hand in hand with other caregivers in delivering care to patients.

Conclusion

The culmination of the project is expected to realize improvement in remote caring. As modern care approaches continue to tilt towards patient-centeredness and convenience, health information technologies are one of the vehicles expected to ensure this. As evident above, these technologies bridge the care gap accustomed to staff shortages and proximity. A project exploiting their effectiveness in chronic care is thus warranted.

References

Angwenyi, V., Aantjes, C., Bunders‐Aelen, J., Lazarus, J. V., & Criel, B. (2019). Patient-provider perspectives on self‐management support and patient empowerment in chronic care: A mixed‐methods study in a rural sub-Saharan setting. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 75(11), 2980–2994. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.14116

Ansah, J. P., & Chiu, C.-T. (2023). Projecting the chronic disease burden among the adult population in the United States using a multi-state population model. Frontiers in Public Health, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.1082183

Astier, A., Carlet, J., Hoppe-Tichy, T., Jacklin, A., Jeanes, A., McManus, S., Pletz, M. W., Seifert, H., & Fitzpatrick, R. (2020). What is the role of technology in improving patient safety? A French, German and UK healthcare professional perspective. Journal of Patient Safety and Risk Management, 25(6), 219–224. https://doi.org/10.1177/2516043520975661

Mayston, R., Ebhohimen, K., & Jacob, K. (2020). Measuring what matters – information systems for management of chronic disease in primary healthcare settings in low and middle-income countries: Challenges and opportunities. Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences, 29. https://doi.org/10.1017/s204579602000030x

Ward, K., Vagholkar, S., Lane, J., Raghuraman, S., & Lau, A. Y. S. (2023). Are chronic condition management visits translatable to telehealth? Analysis of in-person consultations in primary care. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 178, 105197. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2023.105197

Wienert, J. (2019). Understanding health information technologies as complex interventions with the need for thorough implementation and monitoring to sustain patient safety. Frontiers in ICT, 6. https://doi.org/10.3389/

ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

We’ll write everything from scratch

---

In the Discussion for this module, you considered the interaction of nurse informaticists with other specialists to ensure successful care. How is that success determined?

Patient outcomes and the fulfillment of care goals is one of the major ways that healthcare success is measured. Measuring patient outcomes results in the generation of data that can be used to improve results. Nursing informatics can have a significant part in this process and can help to improve outcomes by improving processes, identifying at-risk patients, and enhancing efficiency.

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 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 in the project team.

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

Use the Safe Assign Drafts to check your match percentage before submitting your work.