Nursing Informatics and the Nurse Informaticist (Essay Sample)

Nursing Informatics
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Nursing Informatics
Information processing and sharing are rapidly and continually changing in the healthcare environment. Physicians now have more access to electronic health records, therapy plans, and diagnostics than ever before. Collaboration and communication platforms within the healthcare setup are making it efficient to manage healthcare workflows, improve interdisciplinary collaboration, and enhance the patient experience. Data is meaningful and useful in making healthcare decisions if it has been analyzed, processed, and translated into information that can be translated into knowledge (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2018). The need to utilize data to influence decision making in the process of healthcare provision affirms the importance of a nurse informaticist in a healthcare facility.
Nursing Informatics and the Nurse Informaticist
According to the American Nurses Association (ANA), nursing informatics “is the specialty that integrates nursing science with multiple information and analytical sciences to identify, define, manage, and communicate data, information, knowledge, and wisdom in nursing practice.” A nurse informaticist combines clinical nursing knowledge and experience and technical knowledge in information technology to develop systems necessary to improve healthcare provision (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2018). In order for nurses to get a clear understanding of a patient’s status, they need access to patient’s medical histories, laboratory results, and interdisciplinary notes. Nurse informaticists must maintain and ensure the continuous development of healthcare technologies for ease of information accessibility.
Nurse Informaticists and Other Health Care Organizations
As clinicians strive to transform information into knowledge, technology becomes a fundamental enabler of quality care delivery models, and nurse informaticists are essential in this transformation. According to a 2015 survey by Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) on the impact of nurse informatics, 70% of nurse informaticists have played leading roles in healthcare device consolidation programs, a vital effort towards improving safety and data integrity. The survey results showed that more than two-thirds of respondents trust that nurse informaticists involved in the information technology improvement process enhance the completeness and accuracy of clinical data records (Bresnick, 2015). The survey is a testimony that nurse informaticists will continue playing a critical role as healthcare organizations adopt and implement more technologies to simplify the healthcare process.
The complex nature of the healthcare environment presents an excellent opportunity for an interprofessional collaborative practice to implement technological programs that will transform the way patient care is delivered. There should be great attention to quality while designing healthcare information infrastructure to achieve improved care delivery. An information technology system must consider cultural and system concerns to encourage collaborative practice. A sound system should lay out the scope of every member within the healthcare setup and layout how their scope of practice overlaps with those of other team members. The nurse informaticist must be engaged in interdisciplinary interactions to understand how each different division of practice operates and design a comprehensive system.
Impact of Full Nurse Engagement in Health Care Technology
The concept of nurse engagement connects proportionally with quality, information safety, and patient experiences. Nurse engagement typically refers to the satisfaction and commitment of nurses to their nursing roles. As demonstrated by research, nurse engagement is vital in achieving quality patient care, favorable healthcare outcomes, and overall patient hospital experience (Dempsey & Reilly, 2016). A high level of nurse engagement with nursing roles reduces burnout, compassion fatigue, and turnover while achieving improved outcomes. It is vital to address other factors such as staffing and efficiency, environmental and behavioral conditions that affect engagement. A highly engaged nurse will find meaning in the nursing role, respect the healthcare process, efficiently use technology to enhance patient care, and ensure the integrity of protected health information.
The issue of the cost of services is of essential consideration to healthcare providers. The healthcare providers are concerned about the return on investment for technology and patient engagement. Healthcare information technology is composed of various components whose return or payoff can differ in timing, value, and recipient. For example, the proper use of technology to enhance improved patient care can lead to avoiding hospitalizations for patients in the future (Bresnick, 2015). The Utah Health Information Network demonstrated cost reduction impacts on their administrative functions occasioned by the use of information technology systems. When the nurse is fully engaged and optimally utilizes technology for efficient communication and other functions in the