Discussion:Informatics Impact-Patient Outcomes

Nursing informatics plays a critical role in the transformation of healthcare today, especially through efficient delivery of patient care. Informatics combines nursing science with multiple fields like information science and technology to enhance patient care outcomes. Through the use of electronic health records, clinical decision support systems and other health information technologies, nursing informatics supports the nursing practices and improves patient outcomes (Feldman et al., 2018). The role of nursing informatics in the transformation of health care is to ensure that nurses and other providers utilize the best possible tools so that patients get effective and efficient care (Farokhzadian et al., 2020). The purpose of this paper is to describe a proposed informatics project for the organization aimed at improving patient experience, workforce efficiency, and result in more positive cases of patient outcomes.

Proposed Informatics Project

Knowledge and awareness about the effects of nursing informatics on efficient and effective service delivery is essential to ascertaining quality patient outcomes. Nursing informatics is one way of enhancing patient care efficiency and improvement of the overall care delivery and processes within a healthcare organization or setting. The proposed nursing informatics project in this case is having an integrated system that focuses on educating and training all nurses on informatics. The project will focus on different components of nursing informatics and associated technologies like electronic health records (EHRs), and clinical decision support system (CDSS) among others (Huter et al., 2020). Nurses should be equipped with advanced levels of informatics competency so as to implement evidence-based patient-centered care. Not all nurses are vast and conversant with advanced nursing informatics. Therefore, creating educational learning programs through an integrated program is essential as it will assist them have better ways of using health information technologies (HIT) to enhance efficiencies in patient care and eventually improve their outcomes.

The integrated training program will ensure that nurses have sufficient knowledge in nursing informatics and associated technologies like wearable devices and artificial intelligence (Feldman et al., 2018). Through the training and implementation of the integrated system, the facility will handle and coordinate different healthcare aspects like patient data, training of new nurses, allocation of resources, help in decision-making process and develop performance reports where necessary to improve healthcare management. Through nursing informatics system, nurses will manage patient better and reduce errors and never events.

Stakeholders Impacted by the Project

Projects influence and impact diverse stakeholders based on the roles that they play in organizations. Stakeholders are both internal and external. While the project is mainly targeted at the internal stakeholders, it also affects the external ones like patients and their families since its focus is to enhance efficiency and effective provision of care to patients. Healthcare projects’ stakeholders usually comprise of the project sponsor, the project manager, the project team, healthcare professionals like nurses and physicians, patients, regulatory bodies and government, and suppliers and vendors as third-parties.

In this case, the stakeholders in the project will include the project sponsor, the project manager and the team as they will have both direct and indirect involvement in the initiative’s initiation, development, implementation and coordination (Schwalbe et al., 2018). Nurses will be the primary target for this training and will impacted as the main users and beneficiaries to improve patient care outcomes. Physicians and other providers will also be affected because they work with nurses. Patients are also stakeholders since the initiative is aimed at increasing efficiency and effectiveness of care provision to attain quality patient outcomes, especially dealing with reducing the incidents of adverse events like medication errors that affect patient outcomes by increasing the cost of care.

The regulatory agencies and government will ensure that any project implementation adheres to healthcare regulations and does not cause harm to both patients and their care providers. Besides, the project should protect the interests of nurses in the selected setting (McGonigle et al., 2022). The third parties like the system suppliers and vendors will design and develop the program and its components based on organizational needs and resources before the implementation to ensure that it meets set goals.

Patient Outcomes or Patient Care Efficiencies

The implementation of this integrated nursing informatics system through effective training of nurses and enhancing their knowledge on different components of health information technologies (HIT) will have significant effects on their efficiency and processes leading to better patient outcomes in diverse ways. For instance, equipping nurses with informatics knowledge allows them to identify, define, and communicate data, wisdom and information required in the provision of patient care. The project will achieve both patient outcomes and care efficiencies in different ways (Jouparinejad et al., 2020). Firstly, it will help nurses to get accurate and quality medical reports that will assist in devising the best approaches to treatment processes. Secondly, it will enhance coordinated care among clinicians which will ultimately boost patients’ overall conditions and improve their recovery and eventually better outcomes. Informatics advocate efficiency in clinical processes and procedures to reduce unnecessary tests due to better interoperability (Lee et al., 2019). Therefore, patients will not incur unexpected and unnecessary cost burden because of improved processes and efficiency in making decisions among the providers.

The improvement will happen through assisting nurses align their practices with care and the clinical flows aimed at improving a patient’s overall health. Informatics will focus on improving the nurses’ knowledge so that they incorporate the best practices that help in maximization of patient care outcomes. Nurses should always design and evaluate clinical review of the workflow and devise novel treatment and diagnostic plans to attain the best outcomes. The initiative will also improve clinical protocols, policies and procedures that will integrate nursing informatics with patient outcomes (Karp et al., 2019). The training will enable nurses to choose and test different medical equipment and connected medical devices to get accurate quantity of patient data and information. Through the initiative, nurses will have comprehensive understanding of components that build a better informatics system, interpret data, develop new treatment plans, and deliver care that is intended to improve patient outcomes and efficiency.

Required Technologies

The initiative will require the use of a host of health information technologies and even equipment that are powered by artificial intelligence (AI). These will include electronic health records (EHRs) that helps nurses document information of the care provided to patients for storage and ease of retrieval, portable monitors for nurses to monitor patients’ condition remotely, and smart beds which are critical in tracking several aspects of patients’ weight, movement and vitals. The initiative will also include the use of wearable devices and mobile applications (Moore et al., 2020). These technologies help track and monitor patients with chronic conditions and other aspects like heart disease, respiration, exercise and physical activity among other aspects. Nurses will learn more about these technologies and how they facilitate informatics and provision of patient care in healthcare settings. Program will also entail having nurses learn more about the integration of equipment like automate IV pumps and protocols to reduce any adverse events like patient falls (McGonigle et al., 2022). The implication is that these technologies will all be required for nurses to attain a comprehensive perspective of informatics and its importance in care delivery and patient outcomes.

Project Team by Roles

The project team is part of the stakeholders responsible for the planning and implementation of this proposed program. The team will comprise of the project sponsor whose task will be to offer support for the successful implementation of the initiative, including removal of barriers. The health information systems manager will assume this role. The nursing informatics manager in the facility will be charged with the role of project manager for the initiative. The main duty is to oversee, direct, and deliver the project deliverables by end of the implementation. Healthcare project teams have medical experts to ascertain that the project delivers results that are consistent with the health practices and norms that do not harm patients.

The project entails equipping nurses with sufficient informatics knowledge and components that make informatics working (Feldman et al., 2018). Therefore, the nurse informaticist will be a critical member of the team. The informatics nurses will offer input and provide feedback based on the organizational needs. The informatics nurse will ensure that all nurses understand the different aspects of the project and relate to their work duties and responsibilities related to the provision of better patient care in the long-term. The nurse leader as part of the project team will be charged with the duty of identifying change champions who will ensure that they advocate increased participation in the initiative to develop better systems to meet patient care needs (Lee et al., 2019). The quality assurance manager will also be part of the project team to ensure that the training and the entire initiative meet quality standards, legal and ethical requirements.

Conclusion

Nursing informatics is critical in improving patient outcomes and efficiencies in hospitals. Nurse informaticists as critical change agents work collaboratively with other stakeholders to enhance efficiency and care delivery by developing knowledge and information appropriate for nurses to improve their understanding and application of informatics to improve patient care delivery. As such, the proposed project will improve efficiency, promote better patient outcomes, and enable nurses to work collaboratively with other providers to implement interventions that lead to better care and prevent occurrence adverse events.

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