Introduction to Nurse Informatics
The inclusion of technology in healthcare has come a long way in ensuring efficient service delivery. Hence why the collaboration between the healthcare professionals and nurse informatics specialists is key in smooth running (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2017).
Nursing informatics interact with other professionals on daily basis on several different levels. They help in creating and updating Electronic Health Records that are used by clinicians to make informed and more accurate medical judgments. They also help to promote coordination of information by availing patient information to all the relevant parties, allowing the professionals to give the patient all the information they need improving outcomes and patient satisfaction. From when a patient walks into a hospital, the receptionist can retrieve their medical records from the database. The patient is sent to triage where their blood pressure, BMI, sugar levels among other simple tests are conducted before the patient’s file is sent to the doctor. The doctor thereafter conducts a further examination and proceeds to can send either a prescription to the pharmacist or send the patient for further examination by forwarding the patient’s file to the laboratory or nurse for either admission or dressing.
Role of Nurse Informatics in Digitizing HealthCare
Informatics has ensured a shift from the paper and pen era to the electronic documentation era. This has brought about the eradication of manual labor, and delays in terms of exchange of information which has improved the efficiency of operations, productivity and eventually making it all cost-effective (Wang, Kung & Byrd, 2018). However, technology can only facilitate nursing care not human function. It’s imperative to create a back-up system in case of downtimes in terms of maintenance and upgrades to easily revert to the paper and pen system.
Accessibility of patients’ information by those with legitimate access makes it easier for the dissemination of information which makes for a very efficient daily workflow, tracking of staffing, and communication which is part of project management. According to Sipes (2016), project management is one of the essentials identified since it impacts all areas of NI skills and provides an organizing framework for processes and projects including skills such as design, planning, implementation, follow-up, and evaluation.
Nursing informatics is always evolving, the data is used in the development of remote healthcare services such as telemedicine, smart devices, wearable devices, robotics. This is the future of medicine whereby services will be devolved to technology. The question however is what happens to the good old healthcare. Caring functions such as therapeutic communication, listening, touch and mindfulness are an integral part of nursing science because they also help patients maintain, enhance or restore their health, (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2017)
