Nursing Informatics Improves Patient Safety

In this discussion board post, I will compare and contrast informatics and clinical informatics. Then I will give two examples of clinical informatics found in my organization that has been found to improve patient care. I will also give two examples of how my nurse manager can utilize data management in order to improve patient care. Lastly, I will discuss why President Bush mandated that all health records be in electronic form by the year 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.

Nurses are moving from a traditional method of performing task into the technological era. As informatics nurses recognize the need to move from the traditional to a progressive approach. There are many theorist that propose change; however, Kurt Lewin the father of psychology, introduces the theory concepts, emphasizes that the group differ from the sum of its parts. The change theory presents the three-stage model of change. The Lewins model (2011) consist of the unfreezing-change-refreeze theory. The purpose of this discussion is to examine the theories and conceptual frameworks applicable to nursing informatics, view and summarize the video, and Evaluate Applications of Theories or Conceptual Frameworks to Nursing Informatics Initiative.

Nursing informatics and technology are quickly becoming the hot buzz words for nursing in the twenty-first century. While performing research for this specific paper, the observations of how far technology has come from its inception is mind boggling. When looking back to the mid 1990’s every patient had paper charting. Nurses manually charted vital signs, nursing notes, treatments and all orders were manually written in the chart. The patient’s name, insurance information, and billing items were stored electronically. Fast forward twenty plus years and everything nurses do with, for or to a patient is filed electronically. This file today is known as the electronic health record (EHR) (Lavin, Harper, & Barr, 2015). This paper will be delving into the history of nursing informatics and technology, the pros and cons for nurses and what will be the big picture for informatics and technology in nursing today and in the future. Nursing informatics and the technology that has evolved over time are changing and quickly affecting how nurses treat, communicate, plan and document everything that they do for their patients.

Discuss an original presentation to introduce the new EMR system to staff on you unit. In your Presentation:

Similar to the way nurses continue to educate their patients, management of an electronic medical record is continuous (Smith 2013). A nurse informaticist is an essential component to the development and maintenance of the electronic health record and should be included on the management team prior to the electronic health record rolling out (Smith 2013). The nurse should be familiar the daily work flow of the clinical nursing staff to assist with creating the best functional system for the facility, this includes; medication orders, lab draws and documentation (Smith

Within the Electronic Health Record program, the nurse has access to evidence-based practice tools that can assist the nurse in making decisions regarding the patients plan of care (Linder, J., Bates, D., Middleton, B., & Stanfford, R., 2007). The most important feature of the Electronic Health Record is the ability to instantly provide real-time patient-centered data to all authorized providers (HIT, 2013). The Electronic Health Record is real-time, providing nurses with the most up to the moment patient information the significance of this feature can be explained in the following example. For example, if a patient is in surgery, the patient's health record is available to the circulating nurse in the Operating Room, the Post Anesthesia Care Unit nurse and can be shared with the unit staff nurse the patient will be transferred to after recovering in the Post Anesthesia Care Unit. This is of particular importance because having access to the patient's chart, allows the nurses at each phase on the patient's care the ability to prepare supplies, gather necessary equipment and arrange for supplementary staff. Evidence-based practice suggests appropriate planning is a key factor in promoting positive, cost efficient patient outcomes (Anderson, 2012). In the profession of nursing when time is of the essence, and time loss can mean loss of a life, this is a feature that is very

Electronic medical records and safety is a large part of the driving force of health care. Electronic medical records will always have some kind of error that will still produce safety risks. The only way to keep electronic medical records safe is to keep up on the planning, design. Along with the time, cost and safety consequences that come with health care electronic medical records. Every physician needs to know how to keep the medical records safe and make sure they know which record they are entering the information in.

Today’s healthcare is changing, and more hospitals are commencing to go paperless using computers for both medical records and charting. Computers are widely accepted, in personal and professional settings. It is an essential requirement for computer literacy. Numerous advances in technology during the past decade require that nurses not only be knowledgeable in nursing skills but also to become educated in computer technology. While electronic medical records (EMR’s) and charting can be an effective time management tool, some questions have been asked on how exactly this will impact the role and process of nursing, and the ultimate effects on patient safety and confidentiality. In order to

“The United States based Institute of Medicine (IOM) reported in 1999 that at least 44,000 people, and perhaps as many as 98,000 people, die in hospitals each year as a result of medical errors that could have been prevented…” (Anonymous, 2015). When faced with more than a singular sentinel event related to medication administration errors, the organization must begin to look into why this happened and what can be done to prevent any more errors from occurring. Implementing new bar code technology into a new electronic health record (EHR) system can dramatically reduce the number of errors made by healthcare providers. In order to implement a new system; several steps must occur. An informatics nurse plays a vital role in not only the design of new program interfaces, but in developing educational programs for the new systems. Not all studies have shown that implementing a new bar coding system can be beneficial to healthcare providers, though.

With the rapid growth in the implementation and use of electronic medical records, there is an increase in how we define the role of nurses and other team member’s (Deese & Stien, 2004). Along with providing optimal care, nurses are also responsible for interpreting and accurately documenting large amounts of information. According to, (Ericksen, 2009) nursing informatics is defined as the integration of nursing, its information, and information management with information processing and communication technology to support the health of people worldwide. In this

A perioperative nurse’s role is to be the hub of all activity in the surgical setting, they are expected to be clinician and technician, in addition to being a patient advocate during a patient’s procedure (Sweeney, 2011). Therefore, the perioperative nurse is expected to be skilled in managing electronic equipment during the procedure (Sweeney, 2011). An EHR is necessary, so multiple departments within a hospital setting may access patient information. Cerner is the system explored in this paper, utilized by the Alaska Native Medical Center (ANMC). Cerner has its own perioperative solutions portion. This solution consolidates pre-operative,

Sir, can you please step up to the glass, put your palm on the screen and follow the directions from the computer? This is where our future lies…in biometrics, computers, and science. Soon there will be no need to fill out tedious paperwork, to try to remember medications or past medical history. I know it exists in hospitals across America, I have seen it in action many times. Are we as nurses changing with the times? What is nursing informatics? Why is it important to me? How do I rate on the nursing informatics knowledge scale? What is my plan to increase my knowledge base? These questions should be at the forefront of every nurse’s thoughts. The information age has come crashing down on us from every possible angle in our lives, it

In today’s medical field technology plays a big role when it comes to patient care. Technology is huge when it comes to giving the patient the best type of quality care when they are in the hospital. In the old days people would just write it down on a sheet of paper and record it by hand, which caused mistakes. Now with the Electronic Health Record those mistakes are drastically declining. Statistics have shown that using the Electronic Health Record has lowered Nursing mistakes as well as improved patient care. Our society has progressed through the years and has been introduced with the Electronic Health Record which has drastically improved our health care system. The Electronic Health Record provides great communication between

“Computer system facilitate data collection but may increase the potential for entry of incorrect data through input errors” (Hebda, 2013, p.63). Countless errors can be influent the data accuracy and threaten the patient’s safety. Thus, organizations are implementing several measures to decrease the errors and ensure the high quality of data. Therefore, the most important two strategies that are utilized to ensure the accuracy and safety of data entered into information systems used in nursing practice are the education of personal and system checks. All employees must be educated, and education must emphasize the importance of data accuracy, potentially harmful effects of incorrect data and error corrections. The personal must be proficient with information technology and ensure that data content is accurate, complete, and concise. Furthermore, the staff must be competent in appropriate documentation guidelines and standards and practice universal language that is recognizable by all providers. Furthermore, the