Introduction
The role of nurse informatics is to help promote the delivery of safe, quality, and effective care for patients (Reid et al., 2021). Recently, healthcare has experienced a major transformation, which has come with the development of health technology, which makes health delivery efficient and safer Reid et al., 2021). In response to this, informatics has evolved, which includes nursing informatics that integrates information, communication technologies, and nursing and professional competence to promote patient outcomes and well-being (Reid et al., 2021). Due to the increasing advances in technology, the need for a nurse informaticist to help handle nursing care and other activities with more competent professionals has widely increased. In this case, the proposal aims to justify the need for the nurse informaticist position in the organization while focusing on the promotion of quality care delivery to patients through the provision of education by digital platforms.
Nursing informatics and nurse informaticist
Definition:
Nursing informatics is a field of science that specializes in the integration of nursing science with various information and analytical sciences to leverage technology use to promote the delivery of quality care and improve health provision while upholding patient safety, equity in care, and promotion of patient outcomes. Nursing informatics is a core tool that helps integrate the use of technology in the improvement of patient outcomes and promotion of quality care while making use of the right technology to offer the necessary education to address the needs of nurses and patients. This entails the use of technology in the analysis, management, and communication of knowledge, information, and wisdom of the nurses.
The role of the nurse informaticist
In the healthcare sector, the nurse informaticist, who is often called the specialist in nursing informatics, is a registered nurse who relies on the use of advanced data and technology in the provision of care to patients. In this sense, the nurse informaticist combines their integral nursing knowledge with information technology expertise (Reid et al., 2021). With the massive use of data in the decision-making process in health facilities, it is crucial to understand the need for data experts in healthcare, whereby they are able to understand and communicate the reasons behind various decisions and talk them to the patients and colleague professionals. In this case, the nurse informaticists break the fap between nursing practice and data by combining data expertise and clinical experience (Reid et al., 2021). Some of the critical roles they play include validation of quality data, implementation of new processes, and understanding and communicating the reasons behind the implementation of new processes. When the nurse informaticist guides the data-driven processes such as patient education, nurse education, advancement in healthcare, and validation of quality data, this is a core aspect for the nursing profession to inform the care sector while spearheading the delivery of care to the patients (Reid et al., 2021).
Nursing informaticists and other health organization
The current state of healthcare organizations suggests a primarily positive experience with those having nurse informaticist whereby the members to the care team leaders promote technology use in the facility and smoothens the use of electronic health records, making them more user-friendly (Tyler, 2019). In this case, there is better organization of health information and better utilization of health data to formulate clinical decisions, making the delivery of care to the patients more effective and smooth. Being end users of health information systems, nurse informaticists help deliver patient care indirectly (Tyler, 2019). In this case, minimal mistakes have been reported by the users with easy detection of issues such as drug interaction risk, thus providing effective care for the patients. Here, nurse informaticists have been key to supporting the delivery of care and improving overall management in clinical settings (Reid et al., 2021). Here, nursing informatics has been found to improve patient outcomes by enhancing communication among nurses and doctors and increasing staff efficiency with streamlined workflow processes, reducing medication errors, and minimizing other sources of errors such as transcription in health (Tyler, 2019).
Nurse informaticists work with other staff members, including technologists, nurses, physicians, and pharmacists, which is the core of well-coordinated management. In this case, effective communication and care coordination are important to promote the delivery of effective care to patients through the use of technology, which is aided by nurse informaticists.
Effect of Full nurse involvement in health technology
The involvement of nurses in full technological utilization is helpful in promoting patients’ health and well-being. In this case, this entails improved patient monitoring, which is core to identifying errors and needs for improvement as early as possible, offering timely interventions as needed by the patients, and helping create patient-friendly care plans which are based on their health issues (Farokhzadian et al., 2020). Also, technology is core, which has been found to enhance the performance of daily tasks more easily, hence making nurses work more effectively (Farokhzadian et al., 2020). An example is that nurses can communicate with clients in real-time and assess their data in time, which makes it easier to identify cues to manage and prevent complications (Farokhzadian et al., 2020).
Also, the use of technology has been effective in the promotion of the safety of health information whereby the office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology suggests that nurse informaticists help in data and information storage where they oversee adherence to security guides with tools such as encryption, and ability to access patients information hence promoting privacy and confidentiality of the patient’s information (Reid et al., 2021).
Technology also promotes workflow, hence reducing administrative burden and allowing the caregivers to spend more time attending to patients (Reid et al., 2021). It has been found that technology has optimized caregiver involvement in the delivery of care while offering solutions to various issues, hence making it more effective to manage many patients.
Despite needing to invest initially to purchase the technological tools and training, this will result in immense positive outcomes in the delivery of care, which is a major return on the investment that aims to revolutionize healthcare (Reid et al., 2021). In this case, the involvement of technology has been found to help save upto $40 billion annually on the total expenses of healthcare (Reid et al., 2021). This happens through reduced medical errors and saving on health provision by making it more effective to deliver care for the patients (Nelson, 2019). The use of electronic health records has been found to promote documentation, hence protecting patients’ data since limited staff members can access them with provided specific logins (Nelson, 2019). In this case, this is considerably better data security than manual files, which could impair the documentation process.
Opportunities and challenges:
Adding a nurse information post in the program will help promote the quality of care offered to the patients with better information management, hence reducing the risk of medical errors (Peltonen et al., 2019). This is a major opportunity to save on the cost of care, hence improving the return on the investment to the organization (Peltonen et al., 2019). Also, there is better functionality among caregivers, which is characterized by a better flow of information and data analysis, which aids in the clinical decision-making process (Peltonen et al., 2019). Some of the potential challenges include the cost of acquiring the required equipment and training the caregivers, which is just a short-term added cost to the usual running cost of the facility (Nelson, 2019). Other potential challenges include change resistance, which will demand that nurses be enlightened on the need for the integration of information technology skills in their careers (Peltonen et al., 2019). The training cost and provision of ongoing updates will also be needed to keep them competent to address the emerging new technologies.
Care collaboration among caregivers is helpful to enhance the successful inclusion of technology in care (Peltonen et al., 2019). Here, feedback sessions, regular meetings with caregivers, and the inclusion of decision-making processes are important to achieve the desired vision of safe healthcare for all (Peltonen et al., 2019).
Recommendations:
- Nurse informatics are core to reducing the gap between technology and clinical practice, where there will be better care provision and effective patient care.
- The involvement of the nurse informaticist position will help promote quality of care, enhance workflow, help save on the running cost of the patient’s care, and hence promote the overall facility performance in the health sector.
- The nurse informaticist is also key to enhancing data and information management in the health sector, where more secure, private, and confidential services will be provided to the patients.
In conclusion, nurse informaticists have a basic position in the organization, where they play a crucial role in the management of technology in healthcare. The nurse informaticist also helps in the implementation of the current healthcare technology, such as data warehousing, patient engagement, use of smart devices, and remote patient monitoring, which is a major milestone in healthcare today. Here, the nurse informaticist position will lead to the training and education of nurses on technology and make more caregivers aware of the need for these revolutionary aspects of care. This will require the use of evidence-based information to develop more competent caregivers and use the most effective technology in care processes. Through nurse informaticists, this will be a core step to offer better virtual reality care, which helps in the development of real-time care and management, which informs patient-centered care, hence saving the overall cost of management.
References
Farokhzadian, J., Khajouei, R., Hasman, A. et al. Nurses’ experiences and viewpoints about the benefits of adopting information technology in health care: a qualitative study in Iran. BMC Med Inform Decis Mak 20, 240 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12911-020-01260-5
Nelson, T. J. (2019). Nursing informatics: The EHR and beyond. American Nurse Today, 14(3), 36-38.
Peltonen, L. M., Nibber, R., Lewis, A., Block, L., Pruinelli, L., Topaz, M.,… Ronquillo, C. (2019). Emerging professionals’ observations of opportunities and challenges in nursing informatics. Nursing Leadership, 32(2), 8-18.
Tyler, D. D. (2019). A day in the life of a nurse informaticist: Super users. Journal of Informatics Nursing, 4(1), 18-20.
Reid, L., Maeder, A., Button, D., Breaden, K., & Brommeyer, M. (2021). Defining Nursing Informatics: A Narrative Review. Studies in health technology and informatics, 284, 108–112. https://doi.org/10.3233/SHTI210680
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