NURS 6051 Discussion: Interaction Between Nurse Informaticists and Other Specialists

Discussion: Interaction Between Nurse Informaticists and Other Specialists

Many healthcare organizations can benefit from nursing informatics, from hospitals and clinics to assisted living facilities and private practices. Information Technology (IT) tools have been shown to increase efficiency, decrease error rates, and enhance communication between nurses and other healthcare professionals, all of which contribute to a higher standard of care (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2022). Clinical nurses have much support from nurse informaticists, who prioritize patient safety and care optimization. A nurse informaticist’s role is to improve data communication between the clinical and IT teams. Collaborating with other clinical and operational leaders, they specialize in developing strategies for health IT procurement, implementation, maintenance, and optimization (Kwiatkoski, 2021).

Having Trouble Meeting Your Deadline?

Get your assignment on NURS 6051 Discussion: Interaction Between Nurse Informaticists and Other Specialists completed on time. avoid delay and – ORDER NOW

Do My Paper

Nursing informatics optimizes workflows and technology as attention shifts to integrating and expanding to other functionalities like patient portals, secure messaging, increased mobility, and improved reporting. Nurse informaticists observe providers using technology on the floor or in a consultation room. These tools greatly aid the ability to analyze patient data and discover patterns and correlations for use in clinical decision-making (Kwiatkoski, 2021). Effective knowledge management and transfer in healthcare systems rely heavily on nurse informaticists, who develop informatics tools and systems to promote the generation, sharing, and incorporation of new knowledge by members of interdisciplinary teams (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2022).

EPIC is the electronic health record system used by my healthcare facility. Increasing nursing informatics through research is one way to boost this interaction. Electronic health records (EHR) contain a wealth of information that can be mined for patterns and trends. IT experts collaborate with nurses on the floor by designating a superuser. Smart pumps, barcode medication administration systems, and electronic health records (EHRs) are new technologies implemented into our practice settings to improve efficiency, bolster safety, and simplify the nursing process (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2022).

Struggling to Meet Your Deadline?

Get your assignment on NURS 6051 Discussion: Interaction Between Nurse Informaticists and Other Specialists done on time by medical experts. Don’t wait – ORDER NOW!

Meet my deadline

Beaker is a new piece of software implemented in our facility to streamline the lab collection process. Lab data makes up about eighty percent of medical records. Using Beaker reports, pathology labs can improve their efficiency and speed up the decision-making process for their patients. It took some time for the JPS facility to fully adopt the beaker, partly because nurses have difficulty keeping up with the demand for beaker labels. However, nurses can reprint the label through EPIC and extra efforts made by IT specialists to ensure employees have easy access (JPS, 2019). If you need to speak to someone in IT, you can only do so via phone. Thus, a member of the IT department should be on call at all times in any healthcare organization.

Employees who will be using my facility’s computers must attend training. Workers can benefit from this orientation by learning the ins and outs of the computer system and how to access it. While employees are working on computers, they are under the direct supervision of technology specialists. Nurse informaticists play an integral role in the rollout of new technologies, spending time with nurses to demonstrate their use. Nurses benefit from this first-hand exposure to new technology because it increases their confidence and opens up new avenues for inquiry. Technology specialists have introduced many novel changes. EPIC now includes a work intensity tool, which measures mental sharpness, to its roster of valuable features—Patient-level, nurse-level, and unit-level epic modules that calculate work intensity scores. Documentation, interdisciplinary orders, historical context, and future projections contribute to the final scores. Workload scoring algorithms routinely revise intensity scores in response to new information.

New technologies and nursing informatics tools are constantly being developed and introduced, which has far-reaching consequences for professional interactions. Improvements in patient care and healthcare providers’ productivity directly correlate to the widespread adoption of technological innovations (Darvish et al., 2014). The technology used for health data management has improved patient security in most cases. When the administration and interdisciplinary professionals can access timely, accurate, and relevant data from information management systems, they can better spot gaps and inefficiencies in healthcare delivery (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2022). Support for inter-professional communication through EHRs and other technologies boosts teamwork and ultimately benefits patients.

Discussion: Interaction Between Nurse Informaticists and Other Specialists

Nature offers many examples of specialization and collaboration. Ant colonies and bee hives are but two
examples of nature’s sophisticated organizations. Each thrives because their members specialize by tasks,
divide labor, and collaborate to ensure food, safety, and general well-being of the colony or hive.
Of course, humans don’t fare too badly in this regard either. And healthcare is a great example. As
specialists in the collection, access, and application of data, nurse informaticists collaborate with
specialists on a regular basis to ensure that appropriate data is available to make decisions and take
actions to ensure the general well-being of patients.

ORDER NOW FOR AN ORIGINAL PAPER ASSIGNMENT: Discussion: Interaction Between Nurse Informaticists and Other Specialists

In this Discussion, you will reflect on your own observations of and/or experiences with informaticist
collaboration. You will also propose strategies for how these collaborative experiences might be
improved.

To Prepare:

 Review the Resources and reflect on the evolution of nursing informatics from a science to a
nursing specialty.
 Consider your experiences with nurse Informaticists or technology specialists within your
healthcare organization.

By Day 3 of Week 3

Post a description of experiences or observations about how nurse informaticists and/or data or
technology specialists interact with other professionals within your healthcare organization. Suggest at
least one strategy on how these interactions might be improved. Be specific and provide examples. Then,
explain the impact you believe the continued evolution of nursing informatics as a specialty and/or the
continued emergence of new technologies might have on professional interactions.

Nursing now incorporates various informatics techniques into the treatment of each patient.

Nursing informatics is an integral part of our healthcare system that works behind the scenes and impacts every aspect of healthcare.

In my job, I interact with nursing informatics when incidents like falls, violence between health workers or patients, and if there is an infection outbreak. They help to track these incidents to assess what interventions to use. Nursing informatics also works to improve the healthcare system by lowering drug errors. They are at the forefront of developing a safer, more effective medication administration system in healthcare settings. The technique we use where I work, which is very comfortable, simple, and straightforward, involves scanning the patient’s wristband and confirming it on the computer before administering the medication.

I am so excited about the further advancement of telemedicine. It has helped in advancing the healthcare industry, with the involvement of multiple healthcare teams, the secretary, nurses, and the provider, by accessing the patient’s electric medical records anywhere they are, making our patients get the best care with no delay, unlike the days of paper charting.

Nursing leadership has a significant role in developing nursing informatics solutions because of their comprehensive knowledge and oversight of nursing care. Nursing informatics has evolved from a science to a nursing specialty. It is feasible to achieve this by creating a systems-level approach for creating nursing informatics solutions with a solid framework and nursing executive leadership (Mosier et al., 2019). The framework Mosier et al. (2019) created provides examples of how ongoing dialogue, knowledge creation, and application to clinical practice can improve healthcare delivery.

The information technology team develops a process for coordinating leadership, clinical specialists, informaticists, and IT specialists in planning, developing and implementing nursing informatics solutions based on three guiding principles: clear lines of responsibility, respect for expertise, and dedication to the vision.

The healthcare center where I work uses the EPIC electronic health record system, which we all embrace. Improvement by expanding nursing informatics through study can help with the interaction. Data are abundant in electronic health records (EHR) for patterns and trends. By assigning a superuser, IT professionals communicating with the caregivers will be helpful.

New technologies have been incorporated into our practice environments to boost safety, increase productivity, and streamline nursing, including intelligent pumps, barcode medication administration systems, and electronic health records (EHRs) (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2022).

With the emergency of artificial intelligence and remote monitoring technologies like fall detection devices and remote blood sugar monitors, the impact of the nursing informatics specialty will increase and will make it more crucial that frontline healthcare workers will have open and straightforward communication with those who are designing and structuring EHR and the NI department.

The best method to enhance our interactions with the NI is to have more straightforward access to the channels through which we can express our concerns about glitches and errors in the electronic health record (EHR). Although the EHR we use, Epic, is excellent, the software still has several bugs and errors. The NI can correct all these errors as early as possible.

Many times, other coworkers and I are incredibly frustrated about this. We can easily share our observations and frustrations and collaborate as a team to make improvements if we have more accessible access to the team in charge of our EHR.

By Day 6 of Week 3

Respond to at least two of your colleagues* on two different days, offering one or more additional
interaction strategies in support of the examples/observations shared or by offering further insight to the
thoughts shared about the future of these interactions.
*Note: Throughout this program, your fellow students are referred to as colleagues.
Submission and Grading Information

Grading Criteria

To access your rubric:
Week 3 Discussion Rubric

Post by Day 3 and Respond by Day 6 of Week 3

To participate in this Discussion:

Week 3 Discussion

Learning Resources
Required Readings
McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. G. (2017). Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge (4th ed.).
Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
 Chapter 25, “The Art of Caring in Technology-Laden Environments” (pp. 525–535)
 Chapter 26, “Nursing Informatics and the Foundation of Knowledge” (pp. 537–551)

Mosier, S., Roberts, W. D., & Englebright, J. (2019). A Systems-Level Method for Developing Nursing
Informatics Solutions: The Role of Executive Leadership. JONA: The Journal of Nursing
Administration, 49(11), 543-548.

Ng, Y. C., Alexander, S., & Frith, K. H. (2018). Integration of Mobile Health Applications in Health
Information Technology Initiatives: Expanding Opportunities for Nurse Participation in Population
Health. CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing, 36(5), 209-213.

Sipes, C. (2016). Project management: Essential skill of nurse informaticists. Studies in Health
Technology and Informatics, 225, 252-256.

RE: Discussion – Week 3

Collapse

As a manger in a long-term care facility, I spend much of my day creating and maintaining care plans for our residents. This at times involves working with the technology specialists via webex to make improvements or corrections in our electronic health record (Point Click Care). During our most recent state survey we found that the canned text for some of our interventions in the care plans were not accurate. For example, the interventions for c-difficile precautions stated that we placed soiled linens in red bags to be wasted with our other biohazardous materials. This in fact is not the process for our facility. Upon discovering this discrepancy, I had to call our technology specialists and explain our protocol for c-difficile. Together we were able to make the necessary corrections.

We have since discovered other discrepancies in Point Click Care which has made me realize that there’s a communication gap between our facility and the technology specialists who maintain the canned text for care plans. “Nurses, who do most of the EHR documentation (including plans of care, physiological parameters, assessments, interventions, and progress evaluations) in hospitals, are critical to care integration and patient safety” (Glassman, 2017, pg. 45). It would be helpful if the canned text were reviewed quarterly for accuracy with the technology specialists and medical staff. This would ensure the care plans are kept up to date on issues such as infection control policies/procedures, postsurgical precautions (such as with hip surgery), and pharmacology.

With continued improvements in nursing informatics I foresee a more transparent and communicative healthcare system. In a 2016 article it was explained that “When a CNE is analyzing and synthesizing data, it’s typically done manually and is a very time- and labor- intensive process, in part, because technology systems have traditionally been built in silos” (Thew, 2016). I hope to continue working with our technology specialists to create a universal care planning system that can increase data collection by streamlining terminology, policies and procedures. “Documentation entered by nurses into EHRs, for the first time ever, is a potential source for discovering the impact of nursing care on patient outcomes and using the knowledge to improve care” (Macieria, 2017).

References

Glassman, K. S. (2017). Using data in nursing practice. American Nurse Today, 12(11), 45-47. Retrieved March 10, 2020, from https://www.myamericannurse.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/ant11-Data-1030.pdf

Macieria, T. G. R.,Smith, M. B., Davis, N., Yao, Y. Wilkie, D. J., Lopex, K. D., & Keenan, G. (2017). Evidence of progress in making nursing practice visible using standardized nursing data: A systematic review. AMIA Annual Symposium Proceedings, 2017, 1205—1214. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5977718/

Thew, J. (2016, April 19). Big data means big potential, challenges for nurse execs. Retrieved from https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/nursing/big-data-means-big-potential-challenges-nurse-execs

RE: Discussion – Week 3

Collapse

Hello J..,

I always enjoy reading your discussion post. Thank you for sharing an excellent job this week. I do agree about the miscommunication between the technologies team and healthcare workers create so many mistakes. To reduce miscommunication, my manager always updates on communication boards so everyone can see. Also, he updates every in- charges in the unit so that they can huddle every shift about every new update. By doing this, we have excellent communication in our group. For example, we are practicing new cleaning techniques for C- diff contaminated rooms or other isolation rooms differently than others. All the linin and pillows discarded permanently from the isolation room. By doing this, it cost a few extra dollars for linin and pillows, but we have decrease cases of hospital-acquired C- diff incidences in the unit.

Nursing informatics plays an essential role in hospitals and for nurses to make their work easy and perfect. Glassman (2017) said nurses use information and technology to communicate, manage knowledge, mitigate error, and support decision-making at the point of care. Also, informatics increases the correct and timely communication between nurses and providers. Also, informatics helps to exchanged knowledge among healthcare workers. According to McGonigle & Mastrian (2017) “Knowledge can be exchanged or shared in the form of data, manuals, product specifications, principles, policies, theories, and the like”(page 539).

Calling providers for the nonimportant task makes busy for providers and nurses, so to reduces extra phones call our technology team create DOC-HALO system. By utilizing the Doc -halo messaging system, we can text the interdisciplinary team for nonemergency tasks. I also agree with you about the fact of continued improvements in nursing informatics, creating a more transparent and communicative healthcare system. Thank you.

References

Glassman K.S.(2017). Using data in nursing practice. American Nurse Today, 12(11), 45-47. Retrieve from https://www.americannursetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/ant11-Data-1030.pdf

McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. G. (2017). Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge (4th ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning. (pp. 539).

Interaction Between Nurse Informaticists and Other Specialists

The Nurse Informaticist applies data and technology to make a difference in healthcare and patient outcomes as a “system analyst, project leader, quality analyst, chief nurse informatics officer, educator[s],” or even a “consultant for healthcare organizations” (Laureate Education, 2018). At my current place of work, in Public Health, we do no utilize Nurse Informaticists but rather our technology specialists collaborate with our team of nurses to ensure our data collection and charting system is running smoothly.

The technology specialists at our Public Health agency typically only interact with the other professionals in our facility when there is an issue or an update to be completed on our technology systems. These interactions usually entail an email or a quick phone call, and occasionally will be a face-to-face interaction. I think the best way these interactions can be improved is to incorporate scheduled face-to-face time through new employee orientation and staff meetings. Our technology specialists could meet with new nurse employees to brief them on the computer charting system and this early interaction creates the start of this essential professional collaboration, and the technology specialist staff could present at one to two staff meetings per year to update nurses on pertinent information and this will help to continue to grow this workplace collaboration. E

Even though incorporating these task would likely be challenging for our technology specialists as there is constant chatter at the office about how busy they are, but the benefits could significantly outweigh these challenges. Having technology specialists and healthcare professionals working closely together, in regards to informatics, results in many benefits such as:

IT infrastructure benefits- “avoid unnecessary IT costs, better use of healthcare systems, reduce system redundancy,” etc.
Operational benefits- “improve the quality and accuracy of clinical decisions, process a large number of health records in seconds, immediate access to clinical data,” etc.
Organizational benefits- “detect interoperability problems more quickly…, improve cross-functional communication…, enable to share data with other institutions…,” etc.
Managerial benefits- “gain insight quickly about changing healthcare trends…, provide…heads of departments with sound decision-support information…, [and] optimization of business growth-related decisions”
Strategic benefits- “provide a big picture view of treatment delivery, [and] create high competitive healthcare services” (Wang, Kung, & Byrd, 2018, p. 9)

The continued evolution of nursing informatics as a specialty will have a positive effect on professional interactions. According to Elsayed, El-Nagger, and Azim Mohamed (2016), “Nurses are expected to provide safe, competent, and compassionate care” in a practice that is constantly changing and technologically advancing (p. X-X).The nurse information specialists are a very important part to ensuring this kind of care and positive patient outcomes. “In every sphere of nursing practice, nursing research, and nursing education nursing informatics plays a very important role” (p. X-X2).

References

Elsayed, I.A., El-Nagger, N.S., Azim Mohamed, H.A. (2016, May 4). Evolution of Nursing Informatics: A key to Improving Nursing Practice. Research Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences, 11(1), XX-XX7

Laureate Education (Producer). (2018). The Nurse Informaticist [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Wang, Y. Kung, L., & Byrd, T. A. (2018). Big data analytics: Understanding its capabilities and potential benefits for healthcare organizations. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 126(1), 3–13. doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2015.12.019.

RE: Discussion – Week 3

Collapse

Interactions with Electronic Intensive Care Unit (tele-medicine)

In my health care organization, electronic intensive care has been a developing role in patient care over the past few years. Our tele-ICU consists of an intensivist assigned to our facility and 1 nurse for every 10 patients. These nurses also collect data to aid in research studies such as skin care, repositioning, hand hygiene, alarm fatigue, and medication titration. On night shift, our unit does not physically have an intensivist present and we are reliant on the tele-medicine team for orders or care management.

Although they are part of the health care team, communicating with tele-ICU is not always easy. For example, common frustrations with tele-health is they call for unnecessary reasons such as monitor disruption or admission details. When a patient is taken off of monitor for any reason, the bedside nurse already has monitor room and the secretary calling to verify the monitor has been disrupted. That extra call from tele-health can be an overkill. As for admission details, tele-medicine desires this information for data collection. The bedside nurse gets frustrated with this call because this information is typically available in the chart.

Recent studies indicate bedside nurses complain these calls interrupt workflow and the delivery of patient care (Moeckli, Cunningham, & Reisinger, 2013). Some nurses also discussed their discomfort with being monitored even if they were not evaluated in any way (Moeckli, Cunningham, & Reisinger, 2013). Because of similar frustrations, our unit created a more efficient way to communicate directly with tele-medicine.

They can call us directly on our work phones as opposed to having the secretary call us and forcing us to step away from the bedside to take the call. We also have a unit committee that meets with theirs once a month to discuss their data collection and how we can implement their results into patient care. A few months after these staff meetings began, there was definitely a more positive attitude towards tele-medicine on the unit. Nurses were more willing to take calls from them and participate in data collection because they witnessed the impact of these results on patient care.

Strategy for Improvement

One way to improve communication between the ICU staff and tele-medicine is to bridge ideas during monthly staff committee meetings. For example, instead of tele-medicine discussing data collection, perhaps both groups can suggest potential research and develop a plan for data collection. This collaboration would serve as a motivator for ICU staff to have a more positive outlook on telemedicine because they would have a role in their cause. Studies indicate tele-medicine is the most successful when relationships are built with the bedside staff (Kleinpell, et. al., 2016). This would be a fantastic way to build trust and support between the two teams.

Nursing Informatics on Professional Interactions

Because of constant technological advances, nursing informatics could not be more relevant. Evidence-based practice is generated from data collection and analysis through technology, making it easier to improve the quality of patient care (Gregor

NURS 6051 Discussion: Interaction Between Nurse Informaticists and Other Specialists