Nursing informatics: Its Effects on Healthcare (Essay Sample)

Nursing informatics; its effects on healthcare
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Abstract
In today’s healthcare settings, technology plays a vital role in nursing work. It therefore becomes necessary to study the role of nursing informatics, a field characterized by the application of Information Technology (IT) in nursing profession. A literature review involving an extensive search in library resources and several online educational databases has been presented in this paper. The criteria used to select the study focused on nursing informatics as well as the significance of effective use of IT in different aspects of the nursing practice. By critically assessing the emerging technologies, the key effects of nursing informatics have been considered. It is necessary for all nurses to receive IT training in order to take its advantage in the improvisation of the quality of nursing outcome. The author of this paper has discussed how nursing informatics affects social responsibility, service to others, personal & business needs, culture and beliefs in the nursing field as well as the IT challenges for nursing informatics. The paper reflects on the nursing and IT sides of informatics.
Introduction
Nursing informatics has brought about new roles for nurses in patient care. In a health care setting, nursing informatics supports nurses in their decision making. This support is mainly accomplished through information technology, information processes, and information structures (Staggers & Thompson, 2002). Though nursing informatics may be new, several current nurses are choosing to enter this cutting edge field. As a generic and broad field, nursing informatics incorporates both computer technology and nursing science to come up with solutions that improve the quality of healthcare requirements for patients. Nurses normally take several roles to make this happen. The main idea/central purpose of this paper is to describe the effects of nursing informatics on healthcare.
Effects of informatics on healthcare
Staggers & Thompson (2002) describe nursing informatics as the application of Information Technology (IT) in the management and practice duties of nurses. The competency of nursing informatics and its literature review specify the importance of this field. Nurses are effectively integrated into the field of IT so they could successfully deal with it in order to enhance the care outcome. Therefore, it is important to study the healthcare effects of nursing informatics while making bold the suitable educational needs for nurses. Darvish, Bahramnezhad & Keyhanian (2014) demonstrate an extensive search and by using Pubmed, Ovid, Google Scholar, and SID databases, 135 articles were retrieved. "Nursing informatics" was used as the search term in all the databases. In their library search, about 40 books that particularly focused on nursing informatics were selected. Their study mentioned the influence of nursing informatics on the quality of healthcare.
How nursing informatics affect my social responsibility
Nurses have an obligation to act for the benefit of the community or society at large. These relate to patient care, collaboration with other healthcare professionals, and the responsibility to effectively effectuate a social change (Bates & Gawande, 2003). Needless to say, nursing informatics will affect my social responsibility as a nurse. Information technology knowledge could help me to successfully select and implement technology tools in order to improve the society safety. The most significant technologies that normally result to increased patient safety are computerized provider order entry and bar codes. Bar codes help to ease medication administration and, as such, I will be able to serve the society in an easy and fast way. Computerized provider order entry will help me address crucial strategic concerns that deliver improved patient care in a society.
Collaboration with other medical professionals is an idea that is repeatedly discussed in healthcare circles. Nurses are beginning to tap the enormous potential of nursing informatics for collaborating with other medics across the globe. Collaborative computing will foster my productivity by allowing other nurses (at dispersed sites) and I to share patient care information in real time.
How the topic affects my service to others
Every informatics nurse should possess knowledge about decision support tools, predictive analysis, data marts, model building, and group knowledge networks among other elements of nursing informatics. The importance of nurses who can design data marts while understanding the principles of conformed decisions is huge. These nurses can bring improved service to others. The fact-based knowledge will enable me to make care improvements when serving the patients. By embracing analytics and making them a part of my body of knowledge, I will truly enhance my service to others, thus making patients the true beneficiaries of nursing informatics. In their study, Darvish et al. (2014) review the advantages of applying IT in all the nursing aspects. In regard to a technologically rich environment, the quality of healthcare has improved and this has led to the betterment of the health services offered to patients by nurses.
How it affects personal and business needs
It is a personal need for every nurse to communicate effectively with colleagues. Nursing informatics helps to look for ways which can simplify and enhance documentation using advanced information technology (Friede & McDonald, 2005). Since nurses communicate mainly through some notes (which they normally write in a patient’s chart), nursing informatics will help me to continually improve the speed and accuracy of patient charting. When a nurse has access to complete patient notes, he/she can make a better decision about the care of a patient.
For a nurse manager to be successful in a healthcare setting, the mastery of basic business needs is essential. Nurses are no longer expected to be clinical experts only, but instead, must be skillful in running business in their own practice. Nursing informatics plays a crucial rule in such a case. It is a business need not to use a system that is very cumbersome and takes time away from patient care. As a nurse with informatics knowledge, I will ensure that new systems integrate seamlessly with the existing clinic or hospital systems as well as the usual workflow of the nursing process.
How nursing informatics affects culture and beliefs
Nursing informatics research studies can help us to understand some nursing phenomena such as beliefs and culture in the field. Informatics is represented in nursing culture and affects the way nurses express this culture in the environment. Nurses, as a group, are considered subservient to administration and physicians and are referred to as assistants. The culture of nursing is surrounded by stereotypical myths and conceptions which make nurses to remain relatively powerless. The normal role for an informatics nurse tend to be in the IT department where meaningful exposure to practicing nurses is relatively limited. Having nurses prepared in informatics not only strengthens nursing experience but also improves patient care. With this, the belief that nurses are just mere assistants will change and the nursing culture will incorporate the IT techniques which were previously not being used.
Nursing informatics and its challenges for IT
The field of nursing informatics combines IT with clinical knowledge and since this field is young, many professionals are pioneers in the specialty. Issues concerned with the roles and responsibilities of the healthcare providers arise after a healthcare organization hires nurses with informatics knowledge. The integration of the ...