NURS 6051 Interaction Between Nurse Informaticists and Other Specialists
There is one nurse that works in informatics at the hospital I work at. I have only seen the nurse on my floor one time during the two years I have been at the facility. I have had experiences where she will call the floor and ask questions about the patient’s profile or where I chart certain things on the daily assessment. For example, the floor I work on is an orthopedic floor and the patients come up from surgery with a On Q pain pump and the order for it is in the physical chart. She is currently trying to figure out a way to create an order in the EHR so that it is easier to see for nurses that aren’t used to orthopedics to see it. She called the floor and had questions about where in the patient’s EHR that I chart the location and the rate that the pump is infusing. She may create a new tab on the EHR or create something new in the patient’s profile and she will then send out an email or a HealthStream assignment to educate the staff.
Nursing Informatics is an important part of patient care. Managing and processing data into knowledge for healthcare has become a specialty over the last decade (Mosier, Roberts, & Englebright, 2019). One way that the nurse informaticist could improve her interactions with other healthcare professionals would be to have face to face educational sessions with the staff to educate them on new portions of the EHR. She could also make rounds to the floors once a month to assess if there are any questions that the staff may have related to the technology being used. This would give the staff the opportunity to ask the nurse informaticists questions. Another strategy she could use is creating a vision and environment where the healthcare workers are willing to learn and grow. Without change there cannot be growth and the fear of change has to be overcome. The nurse informaticist could provide research on how certain technology has benefit patient care in the past and allow for there to be time for questions. Promoting a healthy learning environment is a step forward in improving professional interactions.
After reading through the resources provided this week, I found the project management skills essential in the impact of the evolution of nursing informatics on professional interactions. Technology continues to evolve and plays an essential part in healthcare. Therefore, nursing informatics is evolving. Through nursing informatics, healthcare professionals have found ways to improve quality of care and determine areas for improvement. To attempt to improve the quality of care, there must be changes made. This is where the project management skills are essential. The project management skill includes design/initiation, plan, implementation, monitor/control, and evaluation (Sipes, 2016). These skills help to implement change within the workplace to improve patient care. Through these project management skills, there will be an increase in interaction between the nurse informaticist and the healthcare workers. There will have to be increased communication between the nurse informaticist and healthcare workers and a willingness to learn for each of the project management skills to work smoothly. The institute of Medicine reports that a Learning Healthcare System uses science and informatics to encourage a culture shift to a continuous learning culture (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2017). The healthcare organization must have an open mind and be willing to learn for health informatics to make a positive impact on professional interactions.
Resources
McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. G. (2017). Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge (4th ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
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.
