The use of technology has been widely embraced within various working sectors. The health sector has integrated technology in the provision of healthcare services through initiatives like the adoption of Electronic Health Records (EHR). Recent developments in the use of IT by nurses have seen the inclusion of many aspects such as ethics, patient care, telenursing among others. Darvish et al. (2014) defined nursing informatics as the integration of nursing science, computer and information science to provide data communication, knowledge and nursing work. On the other hand, nursing professionals view nursing informatics as the integration of information technology and all aspects of nursing including clinical nursing, management, research and education (Darvish et al., 2014).
As a nurse manager, Judy performs various roles within the hospital facility to ensure that patients receive quality healthcare in the safest way possible. One of her roles is to ensure that nurses within the health facility are efficient and perform their duties effectively through the preparation of well-developed duty rosters. The nurses’ work is also closely supervised by the nurse manager by ensuring that the patients have access to direct nurse care as required through proper preparation of schedules. Judy is also charged with the assessment of the nurses’ efficiency through evaluating the quality of care provided to the patients. She also assists in the selection and design processes of appropriate support systems. To fulfill these roles, Judy possesses graduate degrees in nursing and informatics programs that assist her in the development of medical applications that help in shift programing and duty rosters and assessment of nurses’ performance. She also possesses computer skills that enable her to use the IT devices for information retrieval.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Through well-prepared duty rosters, Judy observed that nurse fatigue would be avoided as the working hours would be distributed evenly among the available nurses. This would also ensure that the productivity level of the nurses is at the highest level. Divarsh et al. (2014) observed that careful shift planning and efficient management of nurses’ work have an impact on the quality of healthcare services that the patients will receive. Direct nurse care is important for patient safety, and the provision of quality healthcare as the patient gets the undivided attention of the nurse on duty. The available internet-based nurse scheduling systems require the input of the managers to ensure that there is uniform resource allocation in scheduling and increases direct patient care (Divarsh et al., 2014). While information technology makes it easier for the nurses to accomplish their duties, it is important that the support systems that are adopted are appropriate to ensure efficiency on the part of the nurses. The nurses should be able to make personal decisions concerning patient care based on medical knowledge and experience while at the same time spending more time with the patients as opposed to the IT support systems. It is necessary to adopt support systems that do not limit the utilization of the nurses’ skills and interrupt with the nurses’ working schedules as this will impact on the quality of service rendered by the nurses (Divarsh et al., 2014).
IT support systems have been adopted to assist healthcare workers in fulfilling their duties. Among the duties performed by these systems include decision support, interpretation of photos among others. Divarsh et al. (2014) observed support systems should be integrated with knowledge management of different types for better results. The logical design in the support systems presents some challenges as some cases of medical errors have been reported leading poor healthcare services and risking patients’ safety (Divarsh, 2014). At times, the IT methods adopted may be complex making the use of devices to be difficult for the employees and require frequent maintenance. The support systems adopted should be easy to use, maintain and compatible with the hospital information systems (Divarsh et al., 2014). The frequent need for system maintenance and upgrading is a costly affair hence putting a financial burden on the health facility.
From the interview, it was noted that nurses are required to get IT skills to perform their everyday duties. The IT skills also enable them to interact with technological devices easily. The nurses’ knowledge is also enhanced through eLearning hence the need for IT skills. It was also noted that support systems need to be integrated with human knowledge and experience for efficiency purposes and reducing medical errors. IT support systems are expensive as they need frequent maintenance and updates.
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is a component of United States Department of Health and Human Services whose main goal is to improve the quality, safety, efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare for all Americans (Mutter & Clancy, 2013). AHRQ supports research to improve patient safety, quality, health information technology, healthcare values and prevention and care management and information disseminated for learning purposes (Mutter & Clancy, 2013). AHRQ supports innovation of healthcare delivery by the development of tools through Accelerating Change and Transformation in Organizations and Networks II (ACTION II) leading to health processes improvement (Mutter & Clancy, 2013). AHRQ also provides quality indicators that can be used by managers and researchers to identify areas in healthcare that need further study to enable improvement and also support in the development of healthcare databases and software tools to understand ways of improving healthcare (Mutter & Clancy, 2013). AHRQ also provides training for upcoming researchers to improve their skills to enable improvement of healthcare (Mutter & Clancy,2013). The Joint Commission was established to help accredited organizations address healthcare safety issues and provide solutions (Fenner, 2018). The Joint Commission’s Hospital National Safety aims to improve patient safety through correct identification of patients through the use of two identifiers, improved effectiveness in communication among caregivers by timely reporting of tests and diagnostic procedures and labeling of medication and solutions (Fenner, 2018).AHRQ gives an opportunity for healthcare workers to acquire more knowledge based on research and training and also improve healthcare practices through the adoption of best practices. The Joint Commission’s Hospital National Safety ensures that medication errors are eliminated.
Adoption of IT in the health sector has led to the integration of informatics in nursing curricula. Technology Informatics Guiding, Education Reform Initiative, developed an informatics competency framework that indicates the competencies required of nurses in the U.S. (Divarsh, 2014). The nurses are given continuous IT training beyond the graduate school level. In this clinic, the education is provided at different levels to ensure that each nurse can make use of the support systems that are available for their duties. This ensures efficiency as one is only concerned with support systems that affect them directly.
In conclusion, despite the challenges that IT support systems pose to the healthcare system, it is important to ensure that the systems deliver. Nurses should be subject to IT competency courses at college level and also taken through further training as they work to keep up with the technological changes. IT support systems ensure safety and quality health care services for patients if properly utilized.
References
Darvish, A., Bahramnezhad, F., Keyhanian, S & Navidhamidi, M. (2014), The Role on Nursing Informatics on Promoting Quality of Health Care and the Need of Appropriate Education, Global Journal of Health Science, 6 (6):12-18
Fenner, Kate (2018), The Joint Commission’s Hospital National Patient Safety Goals 2018, The Joint Commission https://www.compass-clinical.com/the-joint-commission-national-patient-safety-goals-for-2018/ Accessed 9 th July, 2018
Mutter, R. & Clancy, C. (2013), Investing in Emergency Medicine ti Improve Healthcare for all Americans: The Role of the Agency for Healthcare Research Quality, Annals of Emergency Medicine, 63 (5): 580-583
