Nurse's Role in Informatics

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The History of Nursing Informatics in Healthcare

Florence-Nightingale , a pioneer in healthcare, created nursing informatics in the 1850s by gathering, organizing, and analyzing data to improve sanitation using nursing and medical procedures. A little over a century later, in the 1960s, nursing-specific involvement with information technology began. After a decade, the first conference on nursing and computers was held. along with the international publication of nursing-specific informatics papers by American and British healthcare professionals.

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Nursing Informatics

In order to improve patient care, nursing informatics integrates nursing, technology, and information gathering and recordkeeping. Data, knowledge, and information are the foundation of nursing informatics.

Over the past few decades, healthcare technology has made incredible strides, providing medical professionals with greater access to data compared to ever before with higher levels of reliability. Additionally, as informatics has developed, nurses are now able to use the data produced by these scientific advances to improve patient care.

The adoption of digital health records, the standardization of diagnostic data, the simplification of health insurance administration, and increased patient privacy are just a few of the innovations in healthcare delivery made possible by informatics. To enhance patient care procedures and prevent negative health consequences, the area of nursing informatics, which is part of the larger field of Health Informatics , combines data management and information technology techniques.

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Nurse Informatics Responsibilities & Duties

Informatics nurses keep an eye on systems and patient care initiatives, analyze data to determine efficiency, and provide suggestions for changes. In order to advance success within a health care system, they can be in charge of formulating new policies, overseeing projects, educating nursing staff, and advocating for patients.

Nurse informaticists are critical not only in developing new medical technology, but also in training staff and evaluating its effectiveness.

Assessing and analyzing health care technology needs
Designing systems technology
Testing systems technology
Implementing the technology which also includes:
1. Staff training
2. Troubleshooting
3. Escalating issues as needed
Assisting in the transition from one system’s technology to another
Evaluating the success of implementation; revising as needed
Serving as project managers
Assisting in ensuring organizations meet federal health care laws such as HIPAA
Serving as a resource to staff
Serving as a liaison between staff and information technology experts
Assessing user requirements and developing solutions
Serving as an educator to staff and new nurses
Developing organizational policies and standards
Researching different informatics topics that affect health care providers as well as patients

Benefits of Nursing Informatics

They are in a unique position to "better manage and communicate information, data, and knowledge in the practice of nursing" since they work at the interface of nursing science, computer science, and information science. Specialists in nursing informatics allow the integration of data, information, and knowledge to better serve patients, nurses, and other healthcare professionals (Nurse Journal, 2019).They focus a lot of their efforts on documentation because "effective communication among the wide variety of health care professionals is absolutely essential to high quality service." A nurse informatics analyst wants to speed up and improve the accuracy of the charting process as healthcare practitioners communicate via notes on a chart. This can lead to better treatment decisions as medical professionals now have better access to patient records (Nurse Journal, 2019).Using technology to learn could help with seeing possible issues earlier. For instance, using electronic documentation makes it possible to notice changes in patient status fast because the information is available immediately. Data is evaluated, systematized, and organized, and a trend of patient vital signs is available at all times. The nurse can formalize a suitable action plan using this knowledge.

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Where Nurse Informatics Professionals Work ?

Facilities across the care continuum, from hospitals to medical offices, as well as a wide range of consulting agencies, universities, and corporations, are typical employers for nursing informatics professionals. The following job titles fit this professional competency: