Question

How will you be able to use your competency in Nursing Informatics to succeed as an entrepreneur?

Answer 1

Nursing Informatics to succeed as an entrepreneur

Introduction

Nursing informatics roles have taken many forms in focus and function over the last decades; suffice it to say that they have not been consistently described or defined in terms of scope of practice. At the time of this writing it is clear that role of nursing informatics specialists will continue to evolve at an increasingly rapid rate in the coming years. The unfolding of new health care paradigms will bring greater connectivity between care providers and patients, include a wide array of emerging technologies and an increasing emphasis on data analytics will make the integration of informatics competencies into every area of nursing an imperative.

Many nurses find that they experience burnout in the profession and want to create an opportunity to work for themselves without the stress and wear-and-tear that they get from working in the hospital setting. Most importantly though, they want more flexibility and control of their work. Nurse entrepreneurs fill the gaps in the current health care delivery system by supporting the development of targeted products and services, enhanced technology, software, and safety systems. A nurse entrepreneur has been defined as “a proprietor of a business that offers nursing services of a direct care, educational, research, administrative, or consultative nature”. Nurse entrepreneurs may build their businesses to develop and distribute medical products or devices, offer direct patient care or patient advocacy, educate or train other professionals or community members, or provide health care-related consultation, among other functions. As more nurses move beyond the bedside to explore entrepreneurship, it is important to identify best practices and the skill sets that are transferable from direct care giving to business leadership. It is also important to learn about how nurses have shifted perspective to make the transition, including the need for self-care. Despite the challenges that nurse entrepreneurs face, entrepreneurship can provide opportunities for nurses to have a more significant impact, achieve greater career and life satisfaction, and experience an enhanced sense of empowerment.

1. Nurse Health Coach

Nurse health coaches have the ability to actualize their patient's healthcare goals outside of the hospital setting by helping them develop the healthiest version of themselves. By teaching patients how to take optimal care of themselves, the nurse health coach empowers them for life. Nurse health coaches work with patients to provide guidance and resources to assist their patients in living a more healthy and balanced lifestyle. In terms of nursing experience, nurse health coaches generally have many years of direct patient care in the hospital setting and have the desire to have a more immediate and positive health impact on their patient's lives. Many nurse health coaches are entrepreneurs who work in private practice, although some hospitals and doctor's offices hire nurse health coaches as well. Nurse health coaches help their patients by working with them in the following ways:

• Understanding patient's unique healthcare dynamics
• Assessing patients' readiness for change
• Identifying client opportunities and issues for improved health
• Identifying and setting goals to achieve optimal health
• Encouraging and empowering patients to reach their goals

2. Legal Nurse Consultant

A legal nurse consultant (LNC) is an RN expert for legal cases involving medical incidents and issues. LNCs are extremely valuable because they bring clinical expertise and medical experience to attorneys in the litigation process.LNCs clinically analyze and evaluate facts and testimony related to the delivery of nursing and other healthcare services and outcomes. They also analyze and review the nature and cause of injuries in legal cases.

Legal nurse consultants' responsibilities vary depending on the employer and often include:

• Attending medical reviews by independent medical examiners
• Testifying in court as an expert witness
• Reviewing cases to identify strengths and weaknesses
• Preparing chronologies or timelines for medical records
• Working with lawyers to plan healthcare litigation
• Drafting legal documents in medical cases under the guidance of an attorney
• Educating attorneys and paralegals about healthcare issues

3. Nurse Blogger/Freelance Writer

Nurse bloggers and freelance writers create and manage websites containing useful information for readers. The blogs are generally developed based on the creator's medical and/or personal niche.A great benefit to becoming a nurse blogger/writer is that each post or article can be written from a completely different perspective. Nurses work in many different specialties with diverse patient populations. Therefore, each nurse has different skill sets and experiences within their career that they can draw unique information from. In other words, nurses can bring a lot of life experience into their writing.There is a wide range of nurse bloggers on the internet writing about, for example: "nurse mom" lifestyles, nursing informatics, nurse money topics, new graduate nursing, nurse humor, nursing apparel, nursing specialties -- and the list goes on and on.

As a nurse blogger or freelance writer, you can:

• Set your own work hours and schedule
• Have total creative control over your content and products
• Improve and continue to develop your writing skills each time you create a new piece
• Become a better thinker because of the writing process, which then forces you to pause and think deeper
• Develop strong opinions about nurse topics that matter
• Discover thoughts and ideas about the nursing profession that you didn't even know you had

Nurse stress, burnout, and self-care

Social support has been identified as a factor that may mitigate the impact of nurse stress on well-being and functioning.Social support may involve other professionals or personal connections, and may consist of seeking guidance or information, asking for specific assistance from others, emotional support, or encouragement. Additionally, empowerment has been linked with lower nurse stress and burnout, as well as greater well-being. Empowerment has been described as having two dimensions: structural empowerment and psychological empowerment. Structural empowerment refers to advancement opportunities, formal or informal power, resources, and access to information, within an organization or work environment. Psychological empowerment refers to meaning or purpose, self-determination, a sense of competence, and the capacity to have an impact, and can develop from one’s experience of the self in relation to a profession, other professionals, or a specific organization. Both structural and psychological empowerment are believed to contribute to a sense of control and agency in the work experience, and some have postulated that psychological empowerment has a direct impact on well-being, but mediates the relationship between structural empowerment and well-being.

Stress and self-employment

Stress and burnout can also accompany self-employment, and these experiences may be related to factors such as balancing family and business demands, lack of social support, and financial uncertainty. Some research has suggested that control over one’s work is a mediator in the stress/self-employment relationship. Although workplace stress cannot be eliminated completely, the negative stressors can be reduced when nurse entrepreneurs make caring for themselves a priority. Life is a balancing act, and nurses in all settings, especially entrepreneurial roles, can enhance well-being and productivity with effective self-care strategies. This study aimed to better understand the experiences of nurse entrepreneurs, their motives for entrepreneurship, the challenges they face, and the strategies they employ to cope with these challenges.

Emerging roles for nursing informatics specialists

The healthcare sector continues to evolve in the application and use of technologies to support the delivery of care.

Factors including:

a) Rising health care expenditures

b) The increasing incidence of chronic disease

c) The ubiquity of technology

d) An aging demographic

e) Personalized medicine

f) Mobile and virtual healthcare delivery

g) The emergence of consumer informatics

h) Genomics

i) Big data science, and connected health are and will continue informing the evolution of nursing informatics roles.

1 .Virtual and connected care

The delivery of health services virtually is becoming common place in many places around the globe. Virtual care has been defined as: “any interaction between patients and/or members of their circle of care, occurring remotely, using any forms of communication or information technologies, with the aim of facilitating or maximizing the quality and effectiveness of patient care” . The most common modalities of virtual care are currently in use in telemedicine. Telemedicine has been largely used to conduct remote medical consultations, assessments and diagnosis (e.g., teledermatology, telestroke, telepsychiatry) through the use of computer technology and associated peripheral devices including digital cameras, stethoscopes and ophthalmoscopes’, and diagnostic imaging.

2 .Knowledge generation and innovation

The traditional ways of new knowledge generation is through research and the dissemination of findings in research journals. Knowledge is consumed by researchers and clinicians who transform it into relevant guidelines and care pathways. The time between the generation of research findings and application in the real clinical work can take several years.

3 .Sharing knowledge and communication

In the realm of the new normal of connected health, nurses will work in temporary teams around patients. Within these teams it will be essential those goals are clear and shared, that roles are defined and accepted and that the way of working is clear to everyone. It requires systems for coordination and communication to ensure the continuity of care

4. Impact of connected health on the Scope of Practice of Nurses and Advanced Practice Nurses (APN)

Nurses’ work will be more focused on analyzing the data and evaluating thresholds for action (e.g., alerting rapid response teams). Patient access to their own records and partnering in their own health will change the roles of physicians, nurses and hospitals drastically. The work of nurses will increasingly shift from a direct care provision to the role of knowledge broker in helping patients to understand care alternatives, manage their health, and navigate information access.

Impact of connected health on the evolving role of the Nursing Informatics Specialist

Connected health will alter the future role of the nursing informatics specialist and require a new set of competencies. To a large extent these competencies will build upon existing competencies but have an increasing emphasis on information use rather than technology use.

	New Competencies	New Roles
1.	Knowledge Innovation and Generation	• Provide guidance and support to others (nurses, patients) in the application and use of emerging knowledge (e.g., clinical decision support, Practice-Based Evidence (PBE), genomics, expert and patient/citizen knowledge) • Inform-teach others (clinicians, teams, patients) about new knowledge and knowledge innovations relevant to specific situations • Provide direction and support to others in the use of international guidelines and knowledge • Contribute internationally to new knowledge generation and innovations ensuring the inclusion of relevant team member and patient perspectives and expertise
2.	Monitoring the use of new technology	• Monitor and maintain vigilance over data/technologies to identify those that add value to a given health situation. • Recognize that nurses, other clinicians and patients may engage and assume responsibility independently and or interdependently for specific data (e.g., remote monitoring, self-monitoring, wearables, appliances). • Recognize the emergence of patient self-service and relevance of patient expertise in specific situations.
3.	Value judgement & quality assessment	• Provide guidance as to the value and relevance of specific data and information as derived from single or multiple sources for any given set of circumstances, or health situations.
4.	Change Management	• Identify the broader scope and considerations for change management in the context of connected health (e.g., virtual and physical participants/partners) • Recognize the extended complexities of technology adoption in the context of connected health.
5.	Communication & Documentation	With increasingly complex and personalized approaches to health care, participate in the identification and/or development of new: • models of clinical documentation • methods of communication • data standards • terminology standards • data sources • data models • data repositories
6.	Data Analytics	In addition to traditional quantitative and qualitative analyses, support and participate in the development and use of new approaches and methods of data analytics for: • knowledge generation (e.g., natural language processing, experiential data) • reporting outcomes • demonstrations of value (e.g., patient-caregiver perspectives, health and financial outcomes) • predictive and retrospective analyses

Conclusion

The future Nursing Informatics Specialist will function in the context of virtual care delivery, be informed by data aggregated from a multiplicity of sources and real-time knowledge generation that will inform individualized care. In addition to the competencies required to date, they will be required to support other clinicians and patients and families as they assume new roles and use data analytics to interpret and appropriately apply new knowledge. With the IoT, connected care will pose as yet unknown challenges for the Nursing Informatics Specialist in the future; what is certain is that the role will continue to evolve from the role scope and responsibilities known today.