Please note that the only APA elements of concern in a journal assignment are your intext citations and references.
Before completing your journal, review and reflect upon the readings and the videos, then discuss some of the ways in which your organization is using technology in an effort to improve patient care. How significant a change would it be for your facility to incorporate some of the technological advances illustrated in the course materials you just viewed? Does your facility currently employ a nursing informatics specialist? If so, what are some of his or her responsibilities? Be sure to refer to the week’s reading and/or web field trips in your response.
Complete your Journal as a Word® document.
Your finished journal entry should be, at minimum, 5 well-developed paragraphs with more than 3 sentences per paragraph.As this assignment is a journal entry and not a formal paper, it may at times be difficult to follow the organization, style, and formatting of the APA 6th Edition Manual. Despite this, your journal assignment should:
clearly establish and maintain the viewpoint and purpose of the assignment;
follow the conventions of Standard American English (correct grammar, punctuation, etc.);
be well ordered, logical, and unified, as well as original and insightful;
display superior content, organization, style, and mechanics; and
use APA 6th edition format for crediting sources.
View the Journal Grading Rubric for this assignment under the Course Home. Journal Readings:
Brokel, J. (2007). Creating sustainability of clinical information systems. The chief nurse officer and nurse informatics specialist roles. Journal of Nursing Administration, 37(1), 1-13.
LeTourneau, B. (2004). Communicate for change. Journal of Healthcare Management, 49(6), 354-357.
Kane, K. (2010). E-health and nursing informatics. British Journal of Community Nursing, 15(4), 157.
Nicholl, L. H. (2003). Education and networking in nursing informatics. CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing, 21(5), 275-286.
Web resources:
There are numerous videos available on the Web that are relevant to professional nursing and health care. This link shows how many videos on “technology in healthcare” are available on a simple Google® video search. Take the time to review several of these videos. Take the time to assess the value of these resources.
Take a look at some of the ways in which Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital is using technology in an effort to improve patient outcomes. Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital. (2007, October 22). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ueTFjcTtco Then view a video that depicts some of the innovations scheduled for a 365-bed, 775,000 sq. ft. Palomar Medical Center West facility in San Diego County, scheduled to open in 2011.
Web resources: (p 2)
Cisco Connected Health. (2008, February 24). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMtMWdlX9Z8
What is Nursing Informatics. (2009, April 13). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq4n8u6H-WM
WiseSo2010. (2009, March 27). An Interview with a Nursing Informatics Specialist. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2Rj4nz0zmc&feature=related
Nursing Informatics. (2009, April 26). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kZv-Me6OOA&feature=related
Cleveland Clinic. (2010). Nursing informatics. Retrieved from http://my.clevelandclinic.org/nursing/informatics.aspx
Kaminski, J. (2010). Process. Retrieved from http://www.nursing-informatics.com/process.html
OVERVIEW
In this unit, you will learn about the role of informatics in improving patient outcomes. You will also study the change process, and learn how to manage the change that comes into play when new systems are introduced to an existing system.
“Nothing is permanent; life is a flux. [Greek philosopher] Heraclitus has said that you cannot step twice in the same river. It is impossible to step twice in the same river because the river has flowed on; everything has changed. And not only has the river flowed on, you have also flowed on” (WordPress.com, n. d., para. 1). Health care organizations today are similar, in that they are in a state of continuous change. Today Americans are living longer and as health care consumers, they have more information to consider than ever before. Health care consumers are more ethnically and racially diverse. Health care costs are continuing to rise. The continued aging of the professional nursing workforce and the current nursing shortage are also changing the health care environment. Societal forces affect access, quality, and cost issues in health care. In order to be effective in this constantly changing environment nurses need to understand and be competent in managing change.
Facilitating organizational change is a complex process in which one of many change models can be used as a framework. Each model may be suited to a different situation; therefore, an approach that works with one change activity might not work as well with a different one. No matter which model is used, nurses can expect to participate and contribute as effective agents of change in any situation.
NURSING INFORMATICS &CHANGE
According to Sandy Savage (personal communication, April 16, 2010), Associate Director of Informatics at Kingman Regional Medical Center (KRMC) in Kingman, Arizona, a nursing informaticist’s primary responsibility is that of a liaison or even a translator between the Information Technology (IT) department and the bedside nurses. To better make the connection between these two areas of health care, the effective informatics nurse specialist will actually use the nursing process: Assessment, Planning, Implementation, and Evaluation.
What is the primary task for a nurse informaticist? The goal is always to improve patient care. For example, there are several areas of clinical practice where the nurse relies on rote memory tasks. If a patient is admitted with certain physical conditions, for instance, the nurse needs to remember to be sure to order a physical therapy and an occupational therapy consult. Ideally, a system could be put in place that would automatically order the consults and take the nurse out of the loop. Why is this necessary? According to Savage (2010) mistakes are most likely to happen when a nurse makes a cognitive shift, when the nurse’s attention is taken away from one task to another. By automating rote memory tasks, then the risk for nursing errors is diminished. If rote tasks can be streamlined, then the nurse is more able to focus on bedside patient care.
Another area where patient care can be improved is to make information more portable. Special consideration must be taken is in the area of standardization. Savage (2010) states that we must move toward systems that stay away from free text as much as possible. Ideally, the nurse should be able to chart his or her assessment, plan the patient’s care, and evaluate the interventions using a standardized nursing language. Nurses are already familiar with North American Nursing Diagnosis Association’s (NANDA) list of approved nursing diagnoses. However, also available, but less familiar are the Nursing Interventions Classification (NIC) and Nursing Outcomes Classification (NOC) languages. Savage (2010) states that these standardized lexicons are not only time saving, but they ensure best practices and increase the transferability of a nurse’s documentation from one facility to another.
To ensure these kinds of patient care standards, some health care facilities have provided for a fulltime staff Informatics Nurse Specialist to assist in using technology to work toward excellent patient care. Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, is a not-for-profit, teaching medical center, and is a trailblazer in education, research, and the management of health information. The facility has begun an initiative that is entitled “The Nursing Unit of the Future” (Cleveland Clinic, 2010, para. 21) where an informatics team examines and assesses the benefits of various technological capabilities.
In order to keep pace with the ongoing changes in today’s health care organizations, nursing leaders need to develop specific skills with information management systems and using new technology that is now part of everyday health care. Nurses can increase their ability to positively influence change by learning about and working with new technology. Information technology also influences how nurses are educated, how they practice, and how they provide patient care. Advances in technology can lead to more direct patient care, shortened length of time for documentation, and quicker access to data. Nursing’s future will certainly include rapid and ongoing changes. It is essential that nurses understand the power of technology and become active in evaluating and improving its benefits.
References
Cleveland Clinic. (2010). Nursing informatics. Retrieved from http://my.clevelandclinic.org/nursing/informatics.aspx
WordPress. (n. d.). Meditation photography. Retrieved from http://sureshg.wordpress.com/2007/06/25/you-can-never-step-into-same-river-twice/
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