Nursing Informatics in Health Care
For this assessment, assume you are a nurse attending a meeting of your state’s nurses association. A nurse informaticist conducted a presentation on her role and its impact on positive patient and organizational outcomes in her workplace. You realize that your organization is undergoing many technological changes. You believe this type of role could provide many benefits to your organization.
You decide to pursue proposing a nurse informaticist role in your organization. You speak to your chief nursing officer (CNO) and human resources (HR) manager, who ask you to prepare a 4–5 page evidence-based proposal to support the new role. In this way, they can make an informed decision as to whether the addition of such a role could justify the return on investment (ROI). They need your proposal before an upcoming fiscal meeting. This is not an essay, but instead, it is a proposal to create a new Nurse Informaticist position.
One important part of this assessment is the justification of the need for a nurse informaticist in a health care organization and references from relevant and timely scholarly or professional resources to support the justification for creating this nurse informaticist position. The term justify means to show or prove that the nurse informaticist position brings value to the organization. This justification must include evidence from the literature to support that this position will provide a return on investment for the organization.
The chief nursing officer (CNO) and human resources (HR) manager have asked you to include the following headings in your proposal and to be sure to address the bullets following each heading:
Nursing Informatics and the Nurse Informaticist
What is nursing informatics?
What is the role of the nurse informaticist?
Nurse Informaticists and Other Health Care Organizations
What is the experience of other health care organizations with nurse informaticists?
How do these nurse informaticists interact with the rest of the nursing staff and the interdisciplinary team?
Impact of Full Nurse Engagement in Health Care Technology
How does fully engaging nurses in health care technology impact:
Patient care?
Protected health information (security, privacy, and confidentiality)?
In this section, you will explain evidence-based strategies that the nurse informaticist and interdisciplinary team can use to effectively manage patients’ protected health information, particularly privacy, security, and confidentiality. Evidence-based means that they are supported by evidence from scholarly sources.
Workflow?
Costs and return on investment?
Opportunities and Challenges
What are the opportunities and challenges for nurses and the interdisciplinary team with the addition of a nurse informaticist role?
How can the interdisciplinary team collaborate to improve quality care outcomes through technology?
Summary of Recommendations
What are 3–4 key takeaways from your proposal about the recommended nurse informaticist role that you want the CNO and the HR manager to remember?
This is the section where the justification for the implementation of the nursing informaticist role is addressed. Remember to include evidence from the literature to support your recommendation.
I work on medical surgical floor at a rural hospital
Sample Answer
Nursing Informatics in Healthcare
Nursing Informatics and the Nurse Informaticist (NI) Role
Nursing informatics is the specialty that combines nursing science with various analytical and information sciences with the aim of identifying, defining, communicating, and managing data, wisdom, knowledge, and information in the nursing practice (HIMSS, 2021). Nursing informatics also facilitates the amalgamation of information or data to support interdisciplinary teams in organizations, such as patients and care providers, decision-making for optimal outcomes (Holden et al., 2018). Moreover, it aims to improve health outcomes in people and communities while reducing costs.
Nursing informatics creates room for various careers, including the nurse informaticist (HIMSS, 2021). The nurse informaticist’s role will be employing technology and data to assess and track systems, programs, and health and patient outcomes in a healthcare facility. The NI will also utilize this data to analyze and determine strategies that are working and not. In addition, the NI will be in charge of training staff and nurses on how to use technology, answer their questions and later assess the results to determine if the technology has provided optimal health outcomes.
Nurse Informaticists and Other Healthcare Organizations
Nursing informaticists are employed by other healthcare organizations to develop strategies and procedures, assess measures of quality control that help in improving patient and health outcomes while complying with set policies and guidelines (Holden et al., 2018). Moreover, nurse informaticists are in charge of data collection and assessment in some healthcare organizations such as insurance companies. For instance, in insurance companies, NIs can employ tools such as the Star measures, which are reported to the state and the CMS or Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. They are an integration of performance measures from the HOS, CAHPS, and HEDIS. The star measures contain a rating system in terms of stars, with five stars being the highest to measure the quality of reimbursement and care delivered to patients and other healthcare entities (CMS, 2021).
Nurse Informaticist’s Interaction with Nursing Staff and Interdisciplinary Team
Nurse informaticists are intermediaries between clinical staff such as medical-surgical floor nurses, providers in different locations or areas, and the IT department. Moreover, they act as a connection between various interdisciplinary team members when they educate them on crucial technology adoption like telehealth and EMRs (Holden et al., 2018). I create technology to link teams in different areas with the goal of advancing care and health outcomes, thus achieving organizational goals (Alotaibi & Federico, 2017). Through educating nurses, NIs can determine strong and weak areas of the technology and crucial information and strategies the organization’s management should employ to grasp new opportunities for better outcomes.
Impact of Full Nurse Engagement in Health Care Technology
It is crucial for nurses and healthcare organizations to keep up with the advancing technology and healthcare provision requirements. Technology has become a crucial part of healthcare delivery, and the interdisciplinary team should adopt new technology advancements to improve patient and health outcomes (Alotaibi & Federico, 2017). Fully engaging nurses in this technology related to care provision highly impacts patient care, protected health information, workflow, and return on investment and costs. Healthcare providers should prioritize patient needs while providing care to enhance their satisfaction. Patient care entails organizing, managing, and protecting all patient records and information. Organizations should focus on developing systems focused on nursing and that can be modified technologically as this will help nurses use systems such as Electronic Health Records effectively to promote health outcomes and patient safety (Alotaibi & Federico, 2017).
Health information should be kept safe and private. This information should only be accessed by authorized individuals (Kuoi et al., 2016). Thus, nurse informaticists educate staff on these guidelines and circumstances that allow information to be shared. The nurse informaticist also ensures nurses and providers understand and adhere to HIPAA privacy regulations while providing care. For instance, the medical-surgical floor nurse should not have access to a patient’s financial information as they do not need it to perform their patient care duties. Conversely, the billing department in the healthcare facility should not access the patient’s medical records. Fully engaging nurses in learning this information and guidelines help in maintaining information and patient privacy in healthcare organizations (Alotaibi & Federico, 2017). Moreover, it helps organizations avoid lawsuits arising from mishandling PHI or protected health information.
An organization that fully engages nurses and healthcare providers in healthcare technology and ensures they understand its significance is more likely to increase its workflow (Holden et al., 2018). The nurse informaticist plays a crucial role in guiding staff on using and managing electronic medical records. The NI will ensure the information in these records is well organized for the nurses and healthcare providers to understand it more, thus enhancing their satisfaction with the technology. The staff is more likely to be more productive if they appreciate and understand the technology, thus enhancing patient and health outcomes.
