The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies

The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies

Student’s Name

Institutional Affiliation

The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies

Introduction

Nursing informatics has played a huge role in how the profession has progressed in current times. It has made remote patient care a subject that can be easily approached, which has made patients more knowledgeable in the type of health care that they receive. Nursing informatics has additionally made it easier for health practitioners to identify health risks in their earlier stages, which has made it possible for them to be controlled faster.

Through adequate and comprehensive training, nurse informaticists are capable of changing the nursing world with a lasting impact on patient outcomes. As nursing informatics seeks to make healthcare more person and family-based, the project which I propose ensures that patients receive the medical care that they prefer, and all their demands are accommodated. This ensures that their hospital experience is satisfactory.

Project Description

A nursing informatics project that I would propose for my organization would be improving on the technological recording of patient symptoms, diagnosed illness, and treatment plan. Through this system, patient care is made simpler, as it is easier to track what is being done to the patient while in the health facility. Through bedside nurses constantly updating patient details, making errors is highly unlikely, and better health care services are provided. Additionally, technological medical records see to it that communication is more accessible between nurses when the information is handed over during shift changes. This project, therefore, seeks to make patient care the utmost concern of all activities that are carried out by health informaticists.

Stakeholders impacted by this project. Healthcare facilities are run through several departments. Each department has a different leadership structure from the others. The nursing informatics has several stakeholders who include hospital management, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and patients. The project will impact these stakeholders in that the hospital’s leadership will need to meet and discuss if the proposal is viable for the hospital. They play a significant part in the project as they are the decision-makers. They are the individuals who decide on what is done in the hospital.

Nursing informatics heavily relies on the skills that are provided by doctors as they are the ones who come up with diagnoses based on the symptoms that are presented by patients by making them more legible. Nurses and pharmacists are also other stakeholders that are affected as errors on prescriptions will be a thing of the past if the organization follows on what is stipulated in the project. The last stakeholder that the project impacts are the patients who are a vital part. The systems that the project seeks to impact have a direct effect on the quality of healthcare that they receive.

Patient outcomes and efficiencies the project seeks to improve and how the improvement will take place. The patient care efficiencies that this project aims to address are the errors that are commonly made by practitioners during communication. It is very likely for a nurse to wrongly read a prognosis made by another nurse due to legibility difficulties. This is also seen in the pharmaceutical aspect as a pharmacist can issue a different dosage from what had been prescribed by the doctor in charge.

The project further seeks to improve on the patient outcome by involving patients in the medical care they receive (Delaney & Weaver, 2017). This is achieved through constant communication between patients and nurses, which will ensure that they receive the care that they desire. Through discussion, nurses can foster a sense of trust with the patients, which makes it easier for them to confide in their nurses on what other symptoms they may be having. Additionally, they can communicate the cultural inhibitors they may have regarding healthcare which help nurse learn what they should and should not do when administering their services. Through respecting the aesthetic preferences, nursing informatics helps ensure that the patient outcome is thriving as the patient will feel that their care was personalized.

Technologies that are required in project implementation and why. The technological advancements that have been made in the nursing profession have made it possible for functions to be made simpler and more efficient. For the implementation of the project, technologies in health like electronic health records (EHR) and electronic medical records (EMR) are required. The EHR is a computerized record of all health information, while the EMR is a digitized health chart of a patient. Nurse informaticists are required to have the necessary information on EHR and EMR systems to provide topnotch medical care for their patients (Macieira, Smith, Davis, Yao, Wilkie, Lopez & Keenan 2017).

Through incorporating these technologies, nurse informaticists can create personalized plans of care, the pathophysiology of patient illness, doctor prognosis, interventions made, and any general improvement on illness, according to Glassman (2017). This project seeks to improve these systems by making the records of a patient computerized. This will ensure that no information can be lost and therefore eases the reference that is made when doctors and nurses look at previous notes.

Additionally, the systems help avoid errors; for example, those made in medication issuing, which prevents any future problems that may arise. Consequently, patient care is made more efficient, and positive health outcomes are guaranteed. Implementation of technology in the activities discussed in the project, therefore, guarantees accuracy in the diagnosis that is reached and which medication the patient is required to take. The use of these technological systems will help in making the needed adjustments to ensure that the health care provided to patients is sustainable and of high quality.

The project team and how I would incorporate the nurse informaticist in it. For the project to be successful, a team is set in place to carry out its various functions (Nelson & Staggers, 2016). At the head of the project team will be the organization’s management, who make the decisions on the budget allocation for the project. They decide on whether the project is feasible for the organization at the time. There will be an IT project manager who will be in charge of the clinical expertise that is involved in the project. There would also be the project manager who will be responsible for ensuring that the project is carried out according to plan.

Additionally, there is the quality manager who will be responsible for ensuring that the design that was created for the project is up to date and detail to the nurse’s manager how it should be implemented when handling patients. The nurse informaticist is incorporated into the project team by placing them in situations where the systems are being used. Through this, they get a first-hand lesson on how they are expected to use the methods while working. The practical experience additionally ensures that the nurse informaticists learn how they are expected to conduct themselves when working with patients to guarantee that they provide quality care.

Conclusion

To summarize, patient outcomes and efficiencies are used as a measure of whether a healthcare system is most successful. It is measured from the perspective of both the patient and the health practitioners. The results that are achieved from looking at patient outcomes and efficiencies help an organization look into which aspects they should improve on.

References

Delaney, C. W., & Weaver, C. A. (2017). Nursing Knowledge and the 2017 Big Data Science Summit: Power of Partnership, Imaging, Impact. CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing, 35(12), 615-616.

Glassman, K. (2017). Using data in nursing practice. American nurse today, 12(11), 45-47.

Macieira, T. G., Smith, M. B., Davis, N., Yao, Y., Wilkie, D. J., Lopez, K. D., & Keenan, G. (2017). Evidence of Progress in Making Nursing Practice Visible Using Standardized Nursing Data: a Systematic Review. In AMIA Annual Symposium Proceedings (Vol. 2017, p. 1205). American Medical Informatics Association.

Nelson, R., & Staggers, N. (2016). Health Informatics-E-Book: An Interprofessional Approach. Elsevier Health Sciences.