The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies
Chronic lifestyle conditions such as hypertension and diabetes are one of the leading causes of mortality globally. This is a cause of worry for the healthcare industry and policymakers. Many patients are diagnosed with lifestyle conditions daily, while millions are unaware that they have these conditions. The top lifestyle conditions affecting millions of individuals in the United States are diabetes, obesity, and hypertension (Lankarani & Assari, 2017). These statistics are alarming since these conditions are the leading causes of mortalities in the United States. These statistics show the need to improve efforts to combat these lifestyle conditions. These efforts may include public health promotion, patient follow-up, and provision of quality healthcare services. Accordingly, this can be achieved by incorporating health information technology and proper information management. Nursing informatics can be applied by integrating technology to improve the efficiency of patient care in the healthcare delivery industry. Our assignment writing help is at affordable prices to students of all academic levels and disciplines.
Project Proposal
The proposed project will be known as the patient alert follow-up system (PAFS). PAFS will provide alerts to nurses involved in patient care to obtain information regarding patient follow-up for patients with a previous diagnosis of lifestyle conditions such as hypertension, obesity, or type 2 diabetes mellitus. After a visit to a healthcare facility, the patient will be examined by the nurse on duty. The patient will then undergo routine screening for lifestyle conditions such as hypertension and diabetes. If the nurse diagnoses the patient with one or multiple chronic lifestyle conditions, the attending nurse will insert their information into PAFS. The nurse can then search to retrieve the patient’s records.
If the nurse fails to retrieve patient details, this will indicate that this is the patient’s first visit or they had previously been diagnosed with these conditions. The nurses will then enter the screening results and refer the patient to an attending physician for further evaluation and booking of a clinical appointment. The attending physician will be alerted of the screening results during patient examination. The physician will then recommend a treatment plan for the patient, such as a diabetes clinic or physiotherapy session; PAFS will automatically select an appointment date depending on the availability of attending physicians and the urgency of the patient’s needs. For subsequent patients who have a previous diagnosis of diabetes, hypertension, or obesity, the nurse will obtain alerts of previous patient visits on whether the patient is adhering to the treatment plans and the outcomes of the current treatment plan. PAFS is a critical patient alert system since many patients with chronic conditions have poor prognoses due to a lack of patient follow-up or nonadherence due to recommended treatment (Kleinsinger, 2018). With the help of the PAFS system, nurses and physicians can evaluate the success of the treatment plan since every clinical visit will be recorded in the system. Healthcare professionals will have real-time and updated patient information.
Stakeholders Impacted by the Project
The patient alert follow-up system (PAFS) will impact stakeholders such as patients, nurses, physicians, physiotherapists, nurse informaticists, and the IT department. Patients will be the primary beneficiaries of this system. The primary goal of this system is to identify healthcare trends and lifestyle conditions, track treatment outcomes, and plan for therapy sessions. Most patients with chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, and obesity do not get the necessary follow-ups, resulting in poor prognosis and healthcare outcomes (Byrne et al., 2021). This has resulted in complications such as kidney failure, heart failure, stroke, limb amputations, and heart attacks. This system will help in the effective monitoring of patients to ensure the quality and safety of patient care. Consequently, this will reduce the length of hospitalization and healthcare costs associated with managing complications of chronic conditions.
Nurses, physicians, and therapists will also be impacted by this system since they are the system’s end-users. They will have to adjust their operations to accommodate this system in their day-to-day practice. They will require training skills and be computer literate to be able to use this system. Nurse informaticists are critical in implementing any new technologies in a healthcare organization. Nurse informaticists work at the intersection of the nursing profession and technologies. Nursing informatics is a nursing specialty that combines nursing knowledge, computer science, and information science (Strudwick et al., 2019). Nurse informaticists will be impacted by the PAFS system since they will have a central in its integration. They will be involved in research to ensure its effective implementation. They will also educate other healthcare professionals on the effective use of the new system. The IT department is also affected by this new technology. They will be involved in ensuring it is integrated into electronic health records. They will also ensure a smooth transition and data transfer in the new system. The IT department will also be involved in regular maintenance of this system to ensure it works at optimum levels to ensure improved efficiency.
Patient-Care Efficiencies that the Project will Improve
The primary aim of this project is to ensure efficient patient follow-up for patients with chronic healthcare conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, and obesity. This system will ensure that patients diagnosed with this system adhere to the proposed treatment. It will also ensure that healthcare professionals are involved in the patient’s treatment journey. This system will also help the patients to ensure they get the available medications and any counseling sessions that they may require in their treatment journey. This system will make nurses work easier in the patient follow-up process. This system will be an automatic clinical alert system that will inform the nurses of specific actions that should be implemented in patient care. Also, this system will allow healthcare organizations to determine the rates of chronic lifestyle conditions of their patients in specific periods. This can be done monthly, quarterly, and annually. As a result, the patient will be more informed of the follow-up process. The patient will also have information on implementing lifestyle choices such as physical activity, diet, and medication adherence. Ultimately, this will improve patients’ health status and quality of life with chronic conditions.
Technologies Required to Implement This Project
The PAFS will need a dedicated server to incorporate it with the organizations’ servers and electronic health records. Implementing the new system will not require the buying of new computers. However, the existing computers will be upgraded to software compatible with the PAFS. All computers will use the IOS operating that is compatible with the PAFS. The IT department will conduct training for healthcare professionals to ensure they are familiar with the system’s operations and requirements. As such, electronic health records (EHRs) will be vital in implementing this system. EHRs contain patient information such as demographics, diagnostic information, imaging studies, laboratory studies, medication, allergies, and medical history (Highfill, 2019). PAFS will be integrated into the HER to ensure that patient information can be accessed from a central access point.
The Project Team and Integration of the Nurse Informaticist in the Team
The project team members will include the charge nurses, system developers, IT department, nurse informaticist, attending physician, and chief physiotherapist. A multidisciplinary team is essential for the successful implementation of any healthcare project. The team members are also involved in all stages of care in patients with chronic lifestyle conditions. The charge nurse will be the project team leader. They will ensure that all project deadlines are met and that all resources are available for the project’s success. The nurse informaticist will be in charge of the technical aspects of the project. They will educate the interdisciplinary team members on the components of the new system. The attending physician and chief physiotherapist will relay the views of their colleagues. They will provide ideas that will be critical in the implementation process. The nurse informaticist is essential in this project. They will be in charge of gathering, interpreting, and disseminating patient data to the stakeholders (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2021). They will also collaborate with the IT department to ensure that the system functions optimally to enhance service delivery.
Conclusion
One of the significant challenges affecting the healthcare system is the high rates of chronic lifestyle conditions. Lack of patient follow-up and medication nonadherence results in poor prognosis and healthcare outcomes. Fortunately, PAFS is a clinical alert system that will guide nurses and healthcare professionals on patient follow-up and evaluation of treatment outcomes. This will make nurses’ jobs easier and improve the efficiency of healthcare services. Nurse informaticists will have an essential role in the implementation of this project. Accordingly, they will be involved in gathering, interpreting, and disseminating data that will be utilized to improve efficiencies of patient care.
References
Byrne, A., Baldwin, A., Harvey, C., Brown, J., Willis, E., Hegney, D., Ferguson, B., Judd, J., Kynaston, D., Forrest, R., Heritage, B., Heard, D., Mclellan, S., Thompson, S., & Palmer, J. (2021). Understanding the impact and causes of ‘failure to attend’ on continuity of care for patients with chronic conditions. PLOS ONE, 16(3), e0247914. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0247914
Highfill, T. (2019). Do hospitals with electronic health records have lower costs? A systematic review and meta-analysis. International Journal of Healthcare Management, 13(1), 65-71. https://doi.org/10.1080/20479700.2019.1616895
Kleinsinger, F. (2018). The unmet challenge of medication nonadherence. The Permanente Journal, 22, 18-33. https://doi.org/10.7812/tpp/18-033
Lankarani, M., & Assari, S. (2017). Diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and long-term risk of renal disease mortality: Racial and socioeconomic differences. Journal of Diabetes Investigation, 8(4), 590-599. https://doi.org/10.1111/jdi.12618
Mcgonigle. (2021). Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge (5th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Strudwick, G., Nagle, L., Kassam, I., Pahwa, M., & Sequeira, L. (2019). Informatics competencies for nurse leaders. JONA: The Journal of Nursing Administration, 49(6), 323-330 https://doi.org/10.1097/
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Question 
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:
The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies
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.