Introduction
The use of informatics in nursing to communicate, manage knowledge, mitigate errors, and support decision-making amid a dynamic world has been critical in helping healthcare. Competency refers to the capacity to employ related skills, knowledge, and abilities essential in the successful performance of functions in the healthcare setting. Thus, informatics competencies are necessary for the nursing facet. Quality and safety education (QSEN) competencies entail evidence-based practice, patient-centered care, teamwork, quality improvement, safety, and informatics (Alexander et al., 2018). QSEN aims to address the challenge of equipping every nurse with competencies vital for continuous quality and safety improvement of the health setting in which they work. As a registered nurse, I should improve upon various knowledge, attitude, and skills.
Competencies for Improvement and Rationale Knowledge
Explain why Information and Technology Skills are Essential for Safe Patient Care
According to Alotaibi and Federico (2018), the advancement of “information and technology skills” in healthcare has provided several opportunities to improve patient care. Furthermore, the effective application of informatics skills has initiated pathways for healthcare transformation and improvement. Medical errors have been reduced thanks to informatics skills. A good example is electronic record systems, which have provided Information on potential medication interactions and allowed nurses to make quick decisions about patient safety. Healthcare facilities lose approximately 40 billion US dollars due to medical errors; thus, preventing medical errors has reduced costs. The electronic system’s alerts have enhanced nurse productivity. Coordination of care has improved as a result of advances in IT. These abilities enable nurses to obtain pertinent patient information from therapists, physicians, billing, and pharmacies to bolster patient satisfaction and outcomes.
Moreover, IT has improved documentation, an essential facet of a nurse’s job to provide quality care. Patients’ histories and needs can be collected and organized in an organized manner using electronic documentation. This system makes patient Information available to nurses for review over time has caused nurses to make adjustments in their safety care provisions and thus make better care decisions. In cases where patients’ x-ray information, health reports, and laboratory results are received in the electronic health record (Kaplan, 2020).
Skills
Seek Education about how Information is managed in Care Settings before Providing care
Healthcare information is managed in facilities using the health information system. The system provides easy storage, retrieval, and access to data at any time. In addition, electronic health records (EHR) in healthcare have enabled easy sharing of Information across diverse healthcare settings (Ghadamyari & Samet, 2020). Besides, the health records department, which manages facility data, has a backup system to ensure no patient data is lost while providing security to patient information concerning bioethics principles. Thus the use of IT for managing patient data before care provision is critical of any facility.
Apply Technology and Information Management Tools to Support Safe Process of Care
A good example of how patient data is managed in care settings using a health information system entails various departments which play a coordinative role in ensuring easier, faster, and quality care provision. The outpatient department, for instance, records the demographics of the patient in the outpatient register to allow for the clinical officer to access the basic data of the patient during a medical examination. After determining the patient’s condition, the clinician records the diagnosis and enables the laboratory department to access specific patient data regarding laboratory analysis.
Attitudes
1. Value technologies that support clinical decision-making, error prevention, and care coordination
To provide quality and safe healthcare, hospitals should incorporate nursing care values into service delivery. Care impacts the quality of service offered and its delivery to patients. To influence the recovery rate, the hospital should embrace the concept of personalized care services, in which each patient’s needs are addressed uniquely. Understanding the patient’s cultural, spiritual, and societal preferences requires kindness and compassion on the hospital staff. To promote safety as a value, the hospital should integrate an information technology system to improve efficiency and effectiveness in the care process by reducing handover errors, medication errors, and prescription mistakes. Besides, patients and their families entrust health services, so health care facilities must provide the desired level of care.
Health facilities should use Electronic Health Records systems to help with the speed of patients’ treatment histories, safety, and quality of care, all of which are critical to health services. Hospitals should ensure patients receive the highest quality of care to meet their healthcare needs. The hospital teams present their extensive experience, expertise, and advanced technology integration through best practices in ensuring that patients are properly diagnosed before treatment. Continued enhancements in care, innovation, excellence, and professionalism ensure patients receive the best possible care. In the healthcare industry, integrity is critical in determining the ethical and professional standards that must be followed during the treatment process.
2. Protect Confidentiality of Protected Health Information in Electronic Health Records
IT will be improved and integrated into the hospital’s care process (Nash, 2018). IT earns an organization’s promotion of human dignity resulting from the level of patient care accorded since it upholds integrity. Besides, values like trust, openness, privacy, and honesty will be promoted during service delivery. The sole reason for health facilities’ integration of IT in patient service delivery is to improve data accuracy and safety. That will be enhanced by integrating EHR systems, which will allow patients’ data to be shared across hospital departments (Badr, 2019).
The system will also allow for the standardization of medical terms, reducing cases of misinterpretation of patient data and medication errors, to promote treatment quality and safety (Mosquera, 2018). Language standardization can use the Systemized Nomenclature of Medicine-Clinical Terms (SNOMED-CT) and Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes (LOINC). SNOMED-CT can be used to describe conditions, diagnoses, patient-to-physician translations, and lab and clinical identifiers (Hebda & Czar, 2017). In addition, the American Nurses Association (2019) will issue guidelines for the use and application of electronic health records and the standardization of nursing terminology.
Conclusion
To summarize, informatics has generally improved clinical outcomes, reduced human error, made tracking patient data easier, and advanced practice efficiency, making it critical to improve safe patient care. The most common applications are E-prescribing, retained surgical items prevention technology, bar code medication administration, and telemedicine.
References
American Nurses Association (2019). Nursing informatics: Scope and standards of practice (3rd Ed.). Silver Spring, MD: nursesbooks.org.
Alotaibi, Y. K., & Federico, F. (2017). The impact of health information technology on patient safety. Saudi medical journal, 38(12), 1173.
Kaplan, B. (2020). Revisiting health information technology ethical, legal, and social issues and evaluation: telehealth/telemedicine and COVID-19. International journal of medical informatics, 104239.
Hebda, T. & Czar, P. (2017). Handbook of informatics for nurses & healthcare professionals.
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.
Mosquera, M. (2018). The single vocab standard for each EHR reporting domain is seen as ‘momentous.’ Medtech Media Government Health IT. Retrieved from http://govehealthit.com
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