Nursing Informatics Competency

The objective of this synthesis paper is to present my readers what I have achieved during my graduate program at American Sentinel University (ASU). It assimilates all my course work, clinical experience, and nursing practice during this time, which presents a complete picture of how I accomplished my Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) consequences and Nursing Informatics track competencies. This paper will pinpoint my personal philosophy of nursing informatics and give a concise summary of my professional achievements, competencies developed during program of studies, and goals for life-long learning as an informatics nurse. The occupation of nursing is considered as both an art and science. Development of nursing comprises evidence‐based practice and fast integration of advances in technology. It is a field that has extensive uses in healthcare, as well as specialty practice. Educational curriculum and degree/certification are choices for nurses to pursue in this exciting field.

The competencies of informatics fit well under this umbrella of nursing as it assists in better patient care. Nursing informatics “is the synthesis of nursing science, information science, computer science, and cognitive science for the purpose of managing and enhancing health care data, information, knowledge, and wisdom to improve patient care and the nursing profession” (McGonigle, 2014). For an example, in my clinical practice, technology informatics can be utilized to measure my patient outcomes, easily access electronical medical records, and easily assess workloads and interventions. It can be seen how Informatics can enhance my abilities to improve patient care and therefore aligns with my philosophy of providing high grade

Informatics is the science of the management of information. It includes different techniques on how the information is collected, stored, utilized and sent to other locations or transmitted. Informatics utilizes computers to process this information. Clinical informatics is also known as health informatics. Clinical informatics is the application and integration part of informatics. It takes the information that has been studied and learned and puts it into practice. (Coiera, 2015). Thus supporting best practices amongst organizations and improving the quality of care given. Informatics takes information studied and uses it to improve efficiency of care givers, eases quality improvement measures, and aids in decreasing liability risks (Aston, 2014).

The nursing field is caring, dependable, and effective. None of which could be accomplished without teamwork, collaboration and informatics. I believe these concepts are fundamental in the nursing profession. Nurses must work with other healthcare staff, the patients and their families to provide patient-centered and quality care. The use of informatics enhance both the quality of care the clients receive and the teamwork and collaboration aspect of nursing. No one nurse can do it all on their own. Nursing requires the use of teamwork and new technology.

Informatics has many possibilities and benefits. The ever growing technology can improve healthcare to protect patients and the medical staff. At Lakeland they use Epic for electronic computer charting, which decreases time to do and increase availability time. With Epic they have designed safety checks to pop up with wrong medication or even different dosage than ordered to prevent medical errors from happening. Now Guardian is slowly being worked into the system to decrease time it take to input vitals for patients. On some units they have a large screen in the huddle room which allows you to click into a patient's chart and focus in on key things. It even has a list screen that helps you to keep track of daily weights, pain reassessments, and I&Os for all patients on that

In order to practice as a nurse informatics or NI specialist, one must know and understand the standard to which he or she is held. The purpose and function of scopes and standards of practice for nursing informatics is to provide an overview of the specialty, assist future specialists understand their scope of practice, and practice at a competent level to guide and support nursing care. The scopes and standards of practice further provides an insight into the foundation of clinical decision making processes and cognitive concepts as the nurse moves data to wisdom in the clinical setting. As a NI specialist, the informatics nurse follows the concepts, scopes and standards of practice to guide and define their profession. This paper will further discuss the principles that guides nurse informatics specialist, the scope and standards of practice, professional performance, functional areas for nurse informatics, competencies, evolution, progress, and the future the specialty.

A nurse is a caregiver, a patient’s advocate, an educator; being a nurse is caring. There are basic components that all nurses should meet or should accomplish. The Mississippi Nursing Competency Model is a model that allows nurses to enhance their education and practice. This model exemplifies what core competencies a nurse of the future should represent, by her skills, attitudes, and knowledge. These core competencies include: patient-centered care, safety, professionalism, systems-based practice, informatics and technology, communication, teamwork and collaboration, leadership, quality improvement and evidence-based practice. Because I am still learning, there are still certain competencies that I was not able to either accomplish or accomplished

Dr. Murray’s article states that nursing informatics is the combination of sciences; computer, information and nursing which helps to “manage and process nursing data, information and knowledge to support the practice of nursing and the delivery of care” (Murray, 2010, p. 3). Collecting information while

wisdom in nursing practice.” (Mitchell, 2011). The idea is to speed up patient care techniques by having information needed at the caretaker’s fingertips, all while giving them excellent care. Informatics allows for information on drug allergies, contraindications and compatibility, access to evidence based practice, symptom checker and diagrams and examples of issues to name a few. Having this information readily available allows for faster access however, the provider needs to be somewhat computer savvy. Having computers

Informatics is a specialty in the nursing field that is combined with certain science. As stated by ANA (2008) “nursing informatics (NI) is a specialty that integrates nursing science, computer science, and information science to manage and communicate data, information, knowledge, and wisdom in nursing practice” (p. 65). ANA further focus on the functional areas rather than the role that guides the scope of practice within NI. These functional areas include: “administration, leadership, and management; analysis; compliance and integrity management; consultation; coordination, facilitation, and integration; development; educational and professional development; research and evaluation; policy development and advocacy; and telehealth” (CCN, 2015, para. 1). With these functional areas in mind, a nursing informatics specialist can perform proficiently, depending on the specific task. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to summarize the result of an interview with a NI specialist and analyze the differences and similarities between the interviewee’s functional areas with that of scholarly ones.

Nurses are consistently rated as one of the most trusted professionals in the United States. One of the reasons for this distinction may be the many nurses who obtain specialty certification within their practice area. Certification confirms the nurse has acquired a level of skill and knowledge above average (Rauen, Shumate, & Gendron-Trainer, 2016). It is important to me to obtain certification when I complete the master’s program in informatics at American Sentinel University. This paper will discuss the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) eligibility requirements to become board certified, the competencies required on the certification test, describing those I have mastered, those I have been

I learned about the five core competencies and how to effectively implement them into my practice. The five core competencies consist of providing patient-centered care, working in interprofessional teams, engaging in evidenced-based practice, applying quality improvement and utilizing informatics (Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2014). Of these, the one that I feel to be continuously evolving and if not applied correctly can create medical errors is informatics. According to Jones and Bartlett Learning (2014), informatics is combining nursing health with computer technology. Technology allows nurses to be more efficient with documentation, increases communication and allows more time to be spent with direct patient

The role of an NI is categorized as a non-clinical advanced nurse. The use of core competencies is an integral part of delivering standardized, measurable, quality healthcare in this day and age. Informatics is a relatively new addition to the APN, and nursing education but an integral part of delivering quality healthcare to patients. In 2010, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) mandated that nurses be key players in transforming and developing the infrastructure that is needed for efficient health information technology (HIT), thus, improving the quality of health care. Presently, informatics is a requirement for all APN 's. In prior decades, informatics was in the embryonic stages of development, but in 1992, the ANA recognised it as a speciality thursting NI to the forefront of nursing education and integerating informatics into the the very core of nursing cirriculum.

As the healthcare industry changes, challenges arise for the healthcare administrators of acute-care organizations. One of these challenges includes the need to ensure that every member of the nursing staff is competent within this continuously changing environment. Competence is not an achievement; it is a habit of lifelong learning. The Joint Commission defines competencies as the knowledge, skills, aptitude and behaviors that an individual possesses in order to perform tasks correctly and skillfully.

Many job titles or description can be associated with the position of an informatics nurse specialist (INS). According to Sweeney (2010), there is no single job description for an individual with a graduate level of education in the informatics field. Furthermore, the author stated that job titles and/or description of an INS varies with each employing organization. However, expected activities should include responsibilities such as administration, project management, software development, analysis, designing and implementing educational programs, consulting, program evaluation and research, and management and leadership (Sweeney, 2010). This implies that an INS should have the skills and knowledge to meaningfully use current technologies to convey and coordinate care across various settings. The purpose of this paper is to summarize three job descriptions, analyze these job descriptions, and make recommendations for improving one of the summarized job description to meet current employer recruitment strategies.