Knowledge workers are workers who think for a living. These workers have acquired particular skills and proficiencies from formal training and apply this knowledge to solve problems creatively. Knowledge workers are tasked with bringing their expertise to work and, as a result, are looked to as leaders for different work initiatives and are also [resent in high-level thinking decision making. Therefore, it is common for company executives to treat employee knowledge as a valuable asset. These workers include computer science programmers, architects, pharmacists, academics, and product designers. Knowledge workers use their intellectual abilities to generate income. It is common for every field to have knowledge workers responsible for designing for the future by researching, thinking, and theorizing. Those planning to build their careers based on their knowledge and intellect must explore the existing knowledge positions and prepare for the ideal job path.
Many systems need knowledgeable professionals to solve problems and collaborate intelligently. Knowledgeable professionals can perform system analysis, manage complex processes, and work independently to refine ideas and thoughts. Therefore, these professionals must gather, analyze, and apply information and interpret data and tasks. They rarely are involved in completing tasks that require manual work. Knowledge professionals also have become more prevalent due to technology becoming more widely used. This is due to the knowledge professional’s nature of being able to develop various innovations and find other applications for the already existing technology systems (Indeed.com, 2022).
One characteristic of knowledge workers is that they contain factual and theoretical knowledge. They must be formally trained for several years to master the needed information. It is common for these professionals to have a college degree at a minimum. Even after hiring, these professional’s learning process continues. An example is when pharmacists require theoretical and factual knowledge before they are in a position where they can dispense medication or even advise patients about the right prescriptions to take. Also, consider sales managers’ requirements to possess customer preferences and factual information about the company’s products.
Another characteristic is that knowledge workers must have access to and know how to apply information (CFI Team, 2022). Knowledgeable workers must identify the needed information from large data sets. This means that they have to know which data is important and which is not. Therefore, they must use their analytical reasoning and ideal judgment to address new customer service issues. An example of where Excel is used for the different finance models can be given.
Also, knowledge workers have to have respectable communication skills (CFI Team, 2022). Their nature of work involves regular communication with customers, co-workers, and other stakeholders. They must be well-versed in reading, speaking, and writing. These skills are useful when discussing with other workmates and delivering presentations when needed. Nowadays, most modern organizations need workers with quality customer service. This is because when workers communicate, they can work closely with co-workers to set goals and make decisions.
Lastly, the CFI Team (2022) argues that knowledge workers need to be motivated. Given that knowledge work calls for continuous growth mainly influenced by the ever-developing technological advancements, these workers must be interested in finding new information and applying it to their work. They must constantly improve their skills to manage and handle complex skills and incorporate advanced technologies into their work.
Nursing Informatics
Nursing informatics is all about integrating theoretical nursing knowledge with the existing information sciences and the processes of analyses to examine and interpret clinical data, streamline the clinical workflow, and improve overall patient outcomes. The nursing informatics field highlights the existing relationship between technology and nursing and also prioritizes data analysis. Professionals in nursing informatics can better understand patients’ outcomes and medical treatments using evidence-based approaches. This ultimately allows healthcare practitioners to use patient-centered and holistic approaches (Monteiro, 2022).
Nursing informatics professionals are responsible for improving and increasing the healthcare system’s efficiency. These professionals enhance the healthcare system’s efficiency to support positive patient outcomes through information technology tools. Nursing informatics professionals are responsible for analyzing clinical data, finding conclusions, and refining the best healthcare practices. Furthermore, they can enable the management of healthcare systems, optimizing administrative and operational functions. This enhances budget management and decreases patient costs. Notably, nursing informatics can influence public health policy at the national and local levels (Monteiro, 2022).
The Role of a Nurse Leader as a Knowledge Worker
Across the healthcare sector, nurses resemble knowledge workers as their daily routines are tasked with synthesizing information, making informed decisions, and learning continuously to improve patient care (Knox, 2019). As a result, nurse leaders play an important role in the interpretation of data. They are responsible for collecting data from various sources and deriving meaning from them. These sources may include patient monitoring systems, evidence-based studies, and electronic health records.
Nurse leaders must also ensure that there is driving interoperability (Knox, 2019). This means that the leaders must ensure seamless communication between the different healthcare systems and technologies. As a result, data within the healthcare setting is exchanged efficiently. Also, interoperability influences a digital transformation within the healthcare sector as organizations can fully unlock their data potential.
Nurse leaders are also at the forefront of leveraging big data. They lead their teams in extracting and harnessing big data sets to make informed decisions, use evidence-based practices, make adequate decisions, and improve quality. In addition, nurse leaders also have to ensure that safety and efficiency are effectively promoted. They have to guide their teams to use technology effectively, which ultimately leads to enhancing patient safety, streamlined workflows, and the optimization of the utilization of resources (Knox, 2019).
References
CFI Team. (2022, December 6). Knowledge Workers. Corporate Finance Institute. https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/valuation/knowledge-workers/
Indeed.com. (2022, June 25). What Is a Knowledge Worker? (Plus 7 Important Traits). Indeed Career Guide. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/knowledge-workers
Knox, A. (2019, April 5). Informatics in Nursing Leadership: Leading in the Age of Technology | Canadian Journal of Nursing Informatics. Canadian Journal of Nursing Informatics. https://cjni.net/journal/?p=5979
Monteiro, I. (2022, December 13). What Is Nursing Informatics? Definition, Skills, and Jobs. Indeed Career Guide. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/nursing-informatics-definition
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