The Concept of Knowledge Worker
Knowledge workers are self-motivated individuals with appreciable experience, education and expertise with a primary role of applying, distributing and creating knowledge. The workers engage in different fields and are responsible for addressing issues and retrieving, sharing, teaching and applying the information to advance organization activities and success. They contribute particular knowledge, including training team members on new technologies and techniques to improve productivity (Shujahat et al., 2019). They create action plans to perform various tasks and oversee critical project implementation. Besides, knowledge workers establish the appropriate methods and resources vital for project completion and design departmental, team or project budgets. They also identify the strengths of their team members and assign them specific duties. Knowledge workers improve work efficiency by addressing employee needs and collaborating with other professionals to discover current trends and evolving project needs that may affect performance and team efforts.
Knowledge workers have various characteristics that make them unique professionals. They possess practical and theoretical abilities and knowledge acquired via formal training. Their education environment provides opportunities for them to learn and test their knowledge and skills, ensuring that the graduating learners are competent. Knowledge workers have information management capabilities, which they utilize to obtain and apply data from various areas and determine the most relevant data to improve organizational function. They have sound analytical skills and judgement to interpret critical information. Knowledge workers also have great communication skills, including debating, reading, writing and communication. Therefore, they can effectively receive or convey information to other stakeholders, such as evidence supporting adoption of new treatment methods. Knowledge workers continuously develop their professional expertise and skills, maintain an open mind and accept new challenges.
Nursing Informatics and Role as Knowledge Worker
The American Nursing Association define nursing informatics as a speciality which combines analytical science, information management and nursing science to communicate, manage, characterize or establish knowledge, information and data in nursing practice. Nurse informaticists are knowledge workers who advocate for effective innovation that improve patient and workplace safety. By efficiently managing technology and information processes and structures, the professionals improve workflow and guide in the adoption of best practices (Strudwick et al., 2019). Nurse informatics integrates clinical practice and technology, making it an established speciality that has developed beyond designing information technology resources and science-centric processes. Nurse informaticists engage in system implementation, selection, and training to deliver patient-centred, high-quality, and safe care using appropriate methods. Nurse informaticists use their knowledge to correlate data with existing information to establish trends that inform professional practice.
Nurses are knowledge workers since their profession involves continuous education and skills acquisition. Nurses apply information and data, converting it into special knowledge to design suitable care plans and update existing organizational practices. Nurses’ work is complex and depends on distinctly specialized knowledge and substantial clinical knowledge to evaluate clinical procedures and decision-making processes (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2021). Like other knowledge workers, nurses strive to update their professional knowledge and control clinical information in dynamic practice conditions. Nurses’ responsibilities as knowledge workers include data collection and application and building and utilizing knowledge. They work to incorporate new ideas into the profession and advance their clinical skills and data management abilities in line with evolving technologies. They also redesign work procedures as they embrace the transformative potential of their profession. For instance, nurse informaticists obtain and employ technical skills in new technologies to interpret extensive data amounts. They assign the technologies to suitable nursing services and care units to offer effective and efficient healthcare.
Hypothetical Scenario on Use of Data
The hypothetical scenario is collecting and evaluating data on the number of patients visiting a health institution. The nurse collects data daily to determine the available staff to meet the rising demands. Nurses can collect such information through patient register completed over one month period (Kyngäs, Mikkonen & Kääriäinen, 2019). The data collected from the patient register is preserved in the computer system. Staff members and other authorized persons may access or retrieve the information when required. The nurse gains specific knowledge on the level of staffing needed to ascertain whether an inadequate labour force exists. Low staff numbers translate to overworked individuals and compromised health service quality.
A nurse leader applies comprehensive judgement and clinical reasoning to create knowledge of the organization’s performance. They could determine the reason for understaffing and develop an action plan to address the issue, such as designing an appropriate work schedule and staff recruitment. Nurses can collaborate with all relevant stakeholders, including other medical professionals and agencies, to share knowledge on the staffing issue and propose improvement strategies (Carthon et al., 2019). With advanced communication skills, nurses can utilize the registration data to understand patient recovery or treatment progress. For instance, they can establish the effectiveness of specific treatment methods and advise management on their impact on organizational performance. The data can help identify the prevailing public health concern and the resources available to control the situation. Nurses can apply their analytical skills to evaluate the records of patients with specific diseases and ascertain the level of adherence to treatment guidelines, drug safety and evolving disease management trends.
References
Carthon, J. M. B., Davis, L., Dierkes, A., Hatfield, L., Hedgeland, T., Holland, S., … & Aiken, L. H. (2019). Association of nurse engagement and nurse staffing on patient safety. Journal of nursing care quality, 34(1), 40.
Kyngäs, H., Mikkonen, K., & Kääriäinen, M. (Eds.). (2019). The application of content analysis in nursing science research. Springer Nature.
McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. (2021). Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge. Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Shujahat, M., Sousa, M. J., Hussain, S., Nawaz, F., Wang, M., & Umer, M. (2019). Translating the impact of knowledge management processes into knowledge-based innovation: The neglected and mediating role of knowledge-worker productivity. Journal of Business Research, 94, 442-450. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2017.11.001
Strudwick, G., Nagle, L., Kassam, I., Pahwa, M., & Sequeira, L. (2019). Informatics competencies for nurse leaders: a scoping review. JONA: The Journal of Nursing Administration, 49(6), 323-330. DOI: 10.1097/NNA.0000000000000760
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