Nursing informatics is a fast growing field in the healthcare industry that can make key difference in healthcare outcomes and delivery. An informatics nurse integrates his/ her technical knowhow with expertise in clinical nursing develop systems which can enormously enhance the value of patient care. The role played by technology in the healthcare environment is becoming critically crucial. As more healthcare systems and hospitals use tools such as computerized coding or electronic medical records (EMR), they will require devoted information technology departments armed with professionals who comprehend both technology at an advanced level and medicine. As informatics nurse is the person that can best play this role.
An informatics nurse works with computer systems and patient data. An informatics nurse is devoted to patient care as opposed to health care informatics who concentrate more matters of administration (Hebda, 2018) . Most of the informatics nurses act like communication references amid IT staff and clinical nurses. When new technology or system is introduced, it is the duty of informatics nurses to provide feedback reports from the people using them daily. Kleib & Nagle, (2018) points out that in a survey done in 2017 by Healthcare Informatics and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), it was identified that the most popular employer of informatics nurses is the hospital. In addition, the survey found out that about 40 per cent of the current roles played by informatics nurses was systems implementation. The role description entails new technology selection and preparation, train and underpin the clinical nurses the way to use the technology. Therefore, the nursing informatics stands between the patient care and computer systems.
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Also, there are other important roles played by informatics nurse in major functional sections in a healthcare setting. They include implementation of electronic medical records (EMR), developing policies in their respective departments, evaluating and managing results and serving as consultants (Hebda, 2018) . These roles may be seen in several healthcare settings such as long-term care, acute care and physician offices. The major contribution made to patient care by the informatics nurses is the documentation of care in EMR. This is because it allows clinical nurses to access information swiftly and use it to enhance patient care.
The future role of informatics nurse is likely to grow and evolve. This is because of the many changes taking place in the healthcare industry such as changes in patient expectation, technological advancement and changes in care delivery. Hence, the informatics nurses will be required to have the most current information at their disposal in order to effectively analyze and deliver improved patient care (Kleib & Nagle, 2018) . Additionally, they will be required to be adaptable when learning new equipment and systems, and have quality management skills.
Informatics nurses are crucial to healthcare delivery. They can bring value and boost care quality to the use of clinical technology and system in the healthcare setting. In the current and future health care system, an informatics nurse will remain to be significant in improving access to patient care information, improve outcome, and reduce healthcare cost.
Connected Health
There are a number of health challenges and there are also enabling technologies that are used in bringing change across the spectrum of health care. The pace of initiating change through the enabling technologies is accelerating. This is due to connected health in which smarter, rapid, and more accurate interactions amid persons, analytics, data, devices, and applications are changing the manner in which healthcare is delivered. Thus, connected health is the road to more cohesive care, and better plus health results.
Connected health is a network of intelligent communications and actionable sharing of information with the goal of enhancing patient outcome (McConnochie, 2015) . It is made possible through a web of technology where devices, processes and people are all able to work collectively. Whereas connected health develops on years of health particular experience with telehealth and mobile health solutions, it is powered by the Internet of Things (IoT), that is rapidly and dynamically evolving, which links networks, software, and intelligent devices and sensors over the internet. The aim of connected health is to ensure enhanced, simple and more efficient collaboration and communication as well as the capacity to make decisions that are more informed with respect to suitable information delivered in the right context and at the right time. A myriad of fresh and common challenges lies in the path of complete realization of connected health (Hossain & Muhammad, 2018) . Some of these challenges encompass regulatory, legal, and reimbursement issues, liability hurdles, lack of interoperability and integration, too little insight and too much data. Examples of connected health in today’s healthcare environment include enhanced drug management, IoT connected patient monitoring and early intervention.
Enhanced drug management by use of RFID. A huge challenge is experienced in the healthcare industry in competing with the large cost of making and managing drugs. The implementation of IoT has helped in boosting confidence in the drug supply chain. Also, it has enabled drug companies and healthcare facilities to mollify their losses and risks. However, there is a drawback in the sense that manufacturing of IoT drugs is not easy, hence only two companies are currently struggling to make them (Hossain & Muhammad, 2018) .
Early intervention where connected health monitors the daily activities of healthy, active persons for well-being like blood sugar level, blood pressure and so on. This is achieved by use of wearable devices (Park, Chang & Lee, 2018) . This comes with the benefit of monitoring the health in real time, therefore early actions can be taken. Additionally, constant alerts can be provided.
IoT connected patient monitoring that can be used to control outbreak of diseases effortlessly. It also helps to restrict an outbreak to a given geographical location until the cause is found. The challenge with IoT connected patient monitoring is the cost of implementation if a large geographical location is affected by a disease outbreak.
Connected healthcare facilitates better cooperation between patients and clinicians. It maximizes resources by offering improved, cost effective and secure solutions to users. Therefore, connected healthcare is the only way to combine various entities to create a connected health environment hence making the services effective and efficient to for consumers. Further it will reduce latencies, human errors, and make medical information available.
How Informatics Has Impacted Public Health
Public health has often benefitted from informatics solutions and analyses. Advancement in technology has led to rapid changes in health care. Also, the need to prevent disease outbreak makes many public health officials to rely on technology to give in real time accurate data in order to make it possible to avert the sprawl of lethal diseases. The following are the ways informatics is already impacting public health.
Dramatic Saving
Health care is not merely expensive, but wasteful as well. Almost 50% of all medical costs are spend on traditional means of information sharing, repeat procedures, errors in delivery or care, delay in care and such like (McCullough & Goodin, 2014) . Much of these waste can be eliminated by having an electronic system like the electronic medical records (MDR) in place. Informatics ensures lab results, among other patient information, arrive their destination sooner enhancing timely delivery of care. According to Rajamani, Kayser, Emerson & Solarz, (2018) it increases communication, reduces errors and propels efficacy in areas where initially there was costly obstruction and incompetency.
Patient Participation
Providing electronic access to patients about the history of their health, and physician recommendations, they are empowered to seriously be responsible for their personal health care. Patients having access to care portals are in a position of educating themselves more efficiently concerning their prognoses and diagnoses whereas tracking symptoms and medications. Also, they can interact with nurses and doctors easily (Rajamani, Kayser, Emerson & Solarz, 2018) . Informatics enables people to feel as if they are a valuable part of their personal health care team.
Shared Knowledge
Informatics offers a way for knowledge regarding patients, medicines, therapies plus many more to be shared easily. When knowledge is passed more readily amid patients and providers, the medical practice gets better (Rajamani, Kayser, Emerson & Solarz, 2018) . Hence each individual within the health care chain, from physicians and healthcare administrators to patients and pharmacists.
Increased Coordination
Healthcare is becoming more specialized implying a range of different persons can give care to one patient in a single hospital stay (McCullough & Goodin, 2014) . For instance, blood level, X-rays, pharmaceutical concerns, physical therapy, nutrition, and discharge instructions. This means that unless there is coordination among the different conversation, problems are likely to occur and that will make care to suffer. Hence why coordination is significant, an aspect that can realized through informatics.
Improved Outcome
Electronic medical record leads to safer and better care because coordinated teams give accurate diagnoses and reduce the possibility for errors. Nurses and doctors are in a position of increasing efficacy thus freeing up time to spend with patients. Also time and money is saved (for hospitals, patients, insurance firms) as tasks and jobs that were previously done manually are automated (McCullough & Goodin, 2014) .
Technology is causing healthcare to undergo massive changes. Health informatics is assisting in ensuring that portion of the change leads to greater coordination, efficiency and most important enhanced care. Hence, global public health is impacted through coordination with multiple entities, thanks to health informatics.
References
Hebda, T. (2018). Handbook of Informatics for Nurses and Healthcare Professionals . Pearson Education Canada.
Hossain, M., & Muhammad, G. (2018). Emotion-Aware Connected Healthcare Big Data Towards 5G. IEEE Internet Of Things Journal , 5 (4), 2399-2406. doi: 10.1109/jiot.2017.2772959
Kleib, M., & Nagle, L. (2018). Development of the Canadian Nurse Informatics Competency Assessment Scale and Evaluation of Albertaʼs Registered Nursesʼ Self-perceived Informatics Competencies. CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing , 36 (7), 350-358. doi: 10.1097/cin.0000000000000435
McConnochie, K. (2015). Pursuit of Value in Connected Healthcare. Telemedicine And E-Health , 21 (11), 863-869. doi: 10.1089/tmj.2015.0111
McCullough, J., & Goodin, K. (2014). Patterns and Correlates of Public Health Informatics Capacity Among Local Health Departments. Online Journal Of Public Health Informatics , 6 (3). doi: 10.5210/ojphi.v6i3.5572
Park, A., Chang, H., & Lee, K. (2018). How to Sustain Smart Connected Hospital Services: An Experience from a Pilot Project on IoT-Based Healthcare Services. Healthcare Informatics Research , 24 (4), 387. doi: 10.4258/hir.2018.24.4.387
Rajamani, S., Kayser, A., Emerson, E., & Solarz, S. (2018). Evaluation of Data Exchange Process for Interoperability and Impact on Electronic Laboratory Reporting Quality to a State Public Health Agency. Online Journal Of Public Health Informatics , 10 (2). doi: 10.5210/ojphi.v10i2.9317
