Nursing informatics is a recent but critical specialty in nursing. It is a specialty that combines nursing science with nursing information technology to develop systems that improve patient care while reducing medical errors. Patient medical data has emerged as a critical factor in reducing medical errors and improving patient outcomes. Nursing informatics is a branch of technology that allows health facilities to efficiently collect patient data/information leading to improved safety, quality of care, and patient outcomes. Nursing informatics is a critical information management system in the medical field as it is the driving force behind development, improvements, decision-making, and clinical outcomes.
In the United States of America, over 95% of all healthcare facilities use some kind of certified health record system. These systems are the backbone of the operations of these facilities as they change the way healthcare is delivered and managed. However, these traditional health record systems are plagued with rampant inefficiencies leading to numerous medical errors. Furthermore, the inefficiency of these traditional health record systems impacts the provision of quality care for patients and the general patient experiences.
Nursing informaticists help to eradicate the rampant inefficiencies of the traditional health record systems. One of the critical issues that healthcare facilities have had to deal with is the problem of medical errors-mostly occasioned by wrong customer data/information. Nurses, physicians, and other medical professionals rely on patient data/information to make critical decisions on patients’ health, intervention, and outcomes.
Wrong information captured in these traditional health record systems automatically results in wrong decisions by nurses and doctors. The role of nursing informatics specialists is to reduce or eradicate errors related to patient information by transitioning patient records/data from paper form to digital format. A transition from the manual entry of information in paper form to digital records greatly reduces any chances of errors. The nursing informatics specialists must ensure that patient records/data are errorless.
Nursing Informatics must align nursing best practices with patient outcomes and clinical care. The most critical objective of nursing informatics is to improve clinical care and patient outcomes through the adoption of best practices. To achieve excellent clinical care, nursing informatics specialists are critical to processes such as the review of clinical workflow, process designs, creating effective treatment plans based on patient information and data, and developing new diagnostics (Ng et al., 2018). All the processes mentioned above have a direct impact on the quality of care given to patients. Working in collaboration with other medical professionals, nursing informatics specialists create the best course of action for patients that lead to value-based and patient-centered care.
Nursing informatics specialists work to improve protocols, policies, procedures, and processes. Data is the lifeline of any medical facility because all decisions are made using data/information (Jabour et al., 2021) Available data/information are used by healthcare facilities to make critical decisions about patients and the direction of growth of such facilities. Most importantly, information is used to evaluate and measure the performance of all protocols, procedures, policies, and processes in caregiving facilities.
For example, it is the responsibility of nursing informaticists to measure the way all specific parts of a healthcare organization are performing with emphasis on patient outcomes. Based on the performance of each part, nursing informaticists can initiate changes to specific parts to streamline activities. Emphasis is put on eliminating bottlenecks, reducing inefficiencies, and improving the overall care and safety for patients.
I researched the experience of other health care organizations with nurse informaticists and there were many cases of success and a few challenges. The integration of the nurse informaticists into the team is done by creating a distinct position for the role. The nurse informaticists are at the center of communication and information within a hospital setting (Mosier, 2018). One of the ma
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