Nursing Informatics Competencies Essay

Nursing Informatics Competencies

In an increasingly digital world driven by more and newer technology, nurses are still expected to deliver quality, compassionate care to the best of their ability. While this new technology may often seem overwhelming at first, it can, in fact, prove very beneficial to the nurses who are exposed to it. In order to get more nurses comfortable with utilizing the technology to its fullest potential the field of nursing informatics has evolved to integrate nursing science, computer and information science ("The TIGER Initiative," p.3). Nurses who become certified in nursing informatics are valuable to their organizations by increasing accuracy in documentation and improving workflow ("The TIGER Initiative," p.3). Eventually such measures will be considered commonplace in the nursing profession.

Technological Improvements

Most of the new technology enhancing the profession pertains to information handling. This includes technology to collect data, analyze the data, and then present the data as information or knowledge (Gugerty & Delaney, 2009, p.7). The data collected can be something as simple as taking a blood pressure, but is more likely referring to the data collected in the electronic health record system (EHRS) (Gugerty & Delaney, 2009, p.7). The EHRS system has not changed the kind of data collected, just the way it is collected, stored and utilized.Nurses are still responsible for exercising caution in regards to patient privacy as they have always been, but they may have to learn new ways of managing privacy when using the EHRS. Furthermore, such systems have the ability of being linked into other systems in other healthcare networks and providing more information than was ever previously available.

Who Benefits From Nursing Informatics?

Substantial evidence links the use of information technology with improvements in patient safety, care quality, access, and efficiency (Fetter, 2009, p.3). The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) has set a goal so that by 2014 75% of all healthcare information systems are instilled with optimized safety and quality improvement tools ("Quality and Patient Safety," 2013). The federal government has also made a push for informatics competency by mandating full implementation of EHRS by 2014, which will require nurses to use information technology to deliver, document, and obtain….....