The Adoption of Information Technologies in the Nursing Sector

As nurses in the health care system, we are the one that is been looked upon with high expectation to provide safety and quality care. Even more the nurses that are present and future in the field of evidence base practice and nursing informatics. With this development knowledge, nursing are expected to perform at a certain level when it comes to engaging in electronic health record and patient care. Gone are the days where paper records was used because it doesn’t sufficiently meet the needs of the health care delivery system today.

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.

b) One of the national forces that have influenced the direction of nursing informatics is the Institute of Medicine (IOM), which has written core competencies for all health care professionals including nurses (Pritchard, 2015). The programs devised by the the Institute of Medicine aims to teach health care professionals to be better at knowing how to manage information accurately and how to use computers to make the information available to all disciplines in order to achieve better patient outcomes. On the other hand, the National Center for Nursing Research (NCNR) is one nursing force that has influenced the direction of informatics (Pritchard, 2015). This agency has created program goals and for nurses and competencies

It is important to note that the implementation of health information technology should not add to the operational burden on the nurses but provide for improvements in patient care (Jacques& Howell,2015). Clancy states,” that the nurse informaticist play a vital role in the successful planning,design and implementation of information technology” ( 2015, p.535). The selection of this new upgraded software will be easily configured and maintained by the IT department. The nurse informatics specialist will assist with the design and implementation of an app system that integrates to an upgraded electronic health record ( EHR) that will display crucial patient information and vital alarm information to the healthcare providers healthcare certified mobile phone and also a centralized dedicated alarm monitoring area in the nurses station. This upgrade in the EHR will provide easy accessible information to help providers to prioritize patient needs as urgent and critical vs noncritical and can wait. The use of mobile devices displaying patient critcal information enables staff to effectively communicate and collaborate with other members of the health care team to respond to a crisis because of an actual life-threatening actionable alarm event. The use of this enhanced, upgraded EHR not only assist health care providers to prioritze actions and react more proficiently to alarms but it will also help to determine the appropriate treatment plan for the

Informatics in nursing has realized success in data communication management of information in the health department. Technology has improved the process of monitoring the patients within and outside the hospital. Application of Informatics contributed in the integration of multiple information. The clinician can now access and retrieve information about specific the occurrence in the healthcare (Middleton, 2014). Additionally, it has facilitated the process of sharing knowledge among the experts in nursing profession (Kudyda, 2016). Follow up on the success of informatics can lead to more improvement. The new technology that emphasizes real time data is a necessary advancement. Data analytics can result in further improvement.

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

Health care information systems cover a wide range of issues dealing with the supervision and use of biomedical information. Health information systems are central support tools in the administration of health care services. An acceptable health information system is important not only for evaluating the health needs of populations but also for preparation and for application of health interventions. It is equally imperative in the assessment of programs. The goal of information systems is to create an appropriate working environment. This is done by providing initial and going training, allocating resources, and by managing unintended consequences (Wager, Lee & Glaser, 2009).

The authors of this article performed a study to define the correlation between health information technology and missed nursing care. The authors believe that health information technology is not there to replace nurses but are present to enhance the nurses’ abilities to provide adequate and safe nursing care. The authors also believe that in order for health information technologies to uphold to its best potential; the nurses that

The author is offering an insightful view from Registered Nurse perspective of the current trends and improvements in the healthcare industry technology. Judy Murphy has an array of health care technological expertise from being a member of Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics and Fellow Healthcare Information Management System Society. In addition to Judy Murphy work experience as Vice-President of Information Services and CO-Chairing the Alliance for Nursing Informatics.

More than ever before, the health care work environment requires comfortable services and high technology information system. The health care manager should aware of and understand the impact of health information technology to ensure that workers are productive, sensitive data is protected, and patients remains safe. To manage effectively and efficiently, the health care manager must have the competencies and skills to evaluate the experience and adoption of new technologies to health care workers in the organization.

Many of the hospitals have changed over to everything being electronic. Nurses use computers every day by using an electronic medical record. Nurses can obtain a patient’s past medical history, current and past medications, treatments that were carried out, access to health literature pertaining to a certain assessment or diagnosis, and your assessment of a current patient. The nurse needs to know how to access the right information, how to retrieve and store information to make the correct diagnosis of the patient. The competencies are important for a nurse because so many nurses lack information technology skills, which can limit their ability to access evidence-based information that could otherwise be incorporated into their daily practice (McGonigle pg.

In 2009, the Institute of Medicine listed the implementation of clinical decision support systems, among other healthcare information technologies, as one of its 100 priority areas of research, bringing visibility and reinforcing the need of theses systems to improve the health of the country. A considerable investment ($36 billion) aiming the rapid implementation and adoption of these information technologies came from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 (Piscotty & Kalisch, 2014). The previous listed works and investments, among others, have the goal to use electronic health records in a meaningful way, promoting exchange of information among healthcare providers (Piscotty & Kalisch, 2014), delivery of the best care possible and patient safety.

Health information management involves the practice of maintaining and taking care of health records in hospitals, health insurance companies and other health institutions, by the use of electronic means (McWay 176). Storage of medical information is carried out by health information management and HIT professionals using information systems that suit the needs of these institutions. This paper answers four major questions concerning health information systems.

Health Informatics created two main categories such as clinical and administrative information systems to meet the needs of one or more department within the health care organization. For the clinical information system, it is set to meet the needs in improving patient care. Therefore, the clinical information system (CIS) categories provide nurses information systems (NIS) that support the way nurses documents the care that given to the patients. However, to improve the delivery of nursing care, the healthcare organization must adopt a computer system that can successfully incorporate tools that will benefit nursing. There is two vendors’ software that implies these characteristics for the

The information technology is changing the world at deviate speed and evident in the healthcare system. The integration of new technologies within the system are emerging the change in nursing practice and improvement of patient safety. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview on the implemented in nursing practice strategies and contribution of information technology to the development of new healthcare system.