Nursing Informatics: The Paradigm Shift in Health Care Management - Essay Sample

Introduction

Generally, the health sector is experiencing a paradigm shift, majorly on the management of health information due to informatics, which has taken center stage in the industry in the current era. According to the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society provides that nursing informatics is a specialty that combines nursing science, information science, and computer science to control and communicate data, information, knowledge, and also wisdom in the nursing practice (Moghaddasi, 2017). Informatics is increasingly becoming present in the nursing profession because of rapidly changing advances in technology. Hussey and Kennedy (2016), argue that the advancement of technology in the health sector has made it easy for health organizations to be able to gather, analyze, and leverage data more efficiently. Thus impacting the way healthcare is executed, how resources are utilized, and the way teams execute their daily duties. However, despite all the breakthroughs in the field of nursing, ethics of the profession demands that security and patient privacy should be observed whilst achieving the objective of transforming information into useful knowledge (Cummings, Shin, Mather, and Hovenga, 2016). Generally, the main objective of this paper is to exude the importance of informatics in the health sector, particularly patient care.

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Significance of Health Informatics

Moghaddasi (2017) argues that the origin, definition, and abilities of nursing informatics indicate the significance of the nursing field. It reveals that nurses are integrated into the area of information technology automatically. In that, they are in a position to handle IT successfully to advance the quality of healthcare outcomes (Moghaddasi, 2017). Therefore, it is imperative for them to be aware of the nursing informatics concerning healthcare and also make bold the required information technology educational wants of nurses. Among the areas nursing informatics has made significant breakthroughs in the nursing field are;

Improved Documentation

One of the significant ways in which informatics has much helped is the process of documentation in that the conventional methods of paper charts that had to be meticulously updated by the use of handwritten notes do no longer exist (Kleib, Simpson, and Rhodes, 2016). Currently, nursing care is spearheaded by individual client's wants and history-data that is gathered and organized in electronic client's records. By documenting a client's condition, and also sharing that data electronically, health officers are in a position to more appropriately manage care, and by extension, advance healthcare quality.

Generally, a great deal regarding patient information documentation takes place automatically when devices that gather certain patient information in real-time and transfer it to the client's records are linked together (Hussey and Kennedy, 2016). When the above is achieved, it becomes easier for nurses to make informed decisions concerning how to provide healthcare and when changes or adjustments should be made by just observing the documentation of the client's condition over time (Cummings, Shin, Mather, and Hovenga, 2016). Therefore, the advanced information technology in healthcare has advanced the safety of patients since the clients' information can be accessed within a short period and necessary steps executed for their benefits as opposed to traditional methods.

Consequently, as a result of electronic charting, which health informatics has made easier, health officers can obtain information within a short time and effectively, utilizing the data to advance the daily workflow (Hussey and Kennedy, 2016). Hence, keeping the information electronically makes it easily accessible by all nurses of the care team, including the physician and also another health professional, as well as staff teams in other healthcare facilities the patient may visit.

Reduced Medical Errors

Patient safety is among the basic goals of any healthcare provider, and health officers are frequently on the front lines of making sure that their client's safety is guaranteed by preventing any kind of medical errors, misdiagnoses, falls, and any form of medical negligence (Cummings, Shin, Mather, and Hovenga, 2016). Therefore, healthcare informatics integration in the nursing profession has provided essential data that can bar these errors; for instance, an electronic record can provide information concerning a possible risky medication interaction or rather allergy that may not otherwise be immediately apparent (Hussey and Kennedy, 2016). Armed with valuable data, the health officers are able to formulate quick decisions that keep their client's safety.

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRO) conducted an exercise to assess the importance of informatics from nurses themselves where they found that a good number of nurses affirmed that when they have access to EHRs, they encounter fewer challenges with getting patients ready for discharge, less medical negligence cases, and also better quality of care (Hussey and Kennedy, 2016). Additionally, when it comes to transfers from one department to the other, nearly 15 percent of the health officers surveyed reported that data was more likely to be shared and less likely to "fall between the cracks" when using electronic systems (Hussey and Kennedy, 2016). In a nutshell, the application of informatics techniques in nursing practice advances patient safety in healthcare facilities, which can also reduce healthcare costs. This is possible since the system will not only provide nurses with information but also alerts to prevent errors, thus reducing the costs of healthcare that are associated with medical errors.

Advanced Coordination of Care

According to Eardley et al. (2018), in most instances, nurses are called upon to assist in coordinating the care of their clients. This means relaying data from other medical officers, for instance, physicians, therapists, pharmacists, etc. both during care and also at discharge. Minus all of the much-needed information, patient care is likely to suffer Eardley et al. (2018). Informatics advances the coordination of this information, giving room for nurses to provide their clients with the complete information they may require, thus improving both outcomes and also the satisfaction with care.

Conclusion

Despite the huge volume of evidence provided by various research institutions and scholars concerning the importance of informatics, there are some who oppose the application of informatics and technology in healthcare in that according to them; it makes the nursing profession more impersonal, with the provider-client relationship being substituted with data and algorithms. However, this notwithstanding, it is fact-based evidence that informatics has revolutionized healthcare to advanced levels. Nurses that have been trained in this technology and how to integrate data into the nurses' workflow are frequently more productive and capable of providing better care than before the error of informatics. Therefore, it is clear that health informatics has indeed revolutionized the health sector, more specifically on how patient information documentation is managed. This is so because essential patient information like patient history can now be found in databases then acted upon within a short period, thus advancing patient care.

References

Hussey, P. A., & Kennedy, M. A. (2016). Instantiating informatics in nursing practice for integrated patient centred holistic models of care: a discussion paper. Journal of advanced nursing, 72(5), 1030-1041.https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jan.12927

Kleib, M., Simpson, N., & Rhodes, B. (2016). Information and communication technology: design, delivery, and outcomes from a nursing informatics boot camp. Online J Issues Nurs, 21(2). http://ojin.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/ANAMarketplace/ANAPeriodicals/OJIN/TableofContents/Vol-21-2016/No2-May-2016/Information-and-Communication-Technology.html

Moghaddasi, H. (2017). The Influence of Informatics on Nursing Care and Professional Development. JOJ NHC, 4(3), 555639. https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/54821344/JOJNHC.MS.ID.555639-final.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DThe_Influence_of_Informatics_on_Nursing.pdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A%2F20200122%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20200122T232139Z&X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=2b3315005f28bbffdc059fef1358c14e49eb81f4fd66d978cf8f4dcff8d6fefc

Cummings, E., Shin, E. H., Mather, C., & Hovenga, E. (2016). Embedding nursing informatics education into an Australian undergraduate nursing degree. Studies in health technology and informatics, 225, 329-333. https://books.google.co.ke/books?hl=en&lr=&id=nQy3DAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA329&dq=Informatics+in+Nursing+Practice&ots=dmw66lwqVy&sig=r21RBtHatd6M7BHNPjvmfePrc40&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Informatics%20in%20Nursing%20Practice&f=false

Eardley, D. L., Krumwiede, K. A., Secginli, S., Garner, L., DeBlieck, C., Cosansu, G., & Nahcivan, N. O. (2018). The Omaha System as a structured instrument for bridging nursing informatics with public health nursing education: a feasibility study. CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing, 36(6), 275-283. https://journals.lww.com/cinjournal/Abstract/2018/06000/The_Omaha_System_as_a_Structured_Instrument_for.4.aspx