Question

Discuss ways that nursing informatics could be applied to all areas of professional nursing practice, including clinical practice, administration, education, and research. Provide examples of each. What do you see as the biggest significance of nursing informatics, and why?

Answer 1

Nursing informatics is the application of information technology to the field of nursing. The information technology can be applied to nursing practice, administration, education as well as research.
Nursing informatics in clinical practice: nurses can use nursing informatics in the clinical practice to improve care effectiveness and achieve positive outcomes. One such example is computerized provider ordering where the medication order is fed in the computer system instead of being transcribed by the nurse. This prevents human errors and help in effective care of the patient.
Nursing informatics in administration: The nursing informatics is used to store and manage patient information safely. One such example is electronic medical records (EMR) which helps in easy coding, billing and insurance reimbursement.
Nursing informatics in education: various applications and softwares can be used to educate and teach the nursing students. One such example is use of power point presentations. Power point presentations help the student to visualise different clinical practices and better learning.
Nursing informatics in research: research is an important part of nursing. Continuous research in the field of nursing helps discover new interventions and betted care plans. These research also help eliminate malpractices which protect the patient from harm. Eg: Application of informatics to the research is very helpful. Nursing informatics provide platform to safely store the information related to the methodology, test results and interpretation of the research which can later be used the professional during tgeir practice.
Nurses use the information gathered through medical records, personal records and physician notes of the patient to make a diagnosis and plan care interventions. Nursing informatics helps in storing, managing and protecting this data of the patient through various applications snd systems. This helps in minimising errors and patient care delays and help achieve positive care outcomes which is the most significance of nursing informatics. Nursing informatics has helped provide effective and efficient care to the patient and improved patient satisfaction.