MSNLA : Health Informatics and Nursing

Healthcare informatics started to evolve as early as the 1950's with the paging service for physicians and has continued evolve to this day. The last few decades have really made a difference in the way we see informatics today. In the 1960's the main drivers were Medicare and Medicaid, who ultimately were the main drivers with the Hitech Act and Meaningful use. In the 1970's the main driver of this era was the need for better communication between departments and the needs for discrete departmental communications such as in the pharmacy and lab. The 1980's then became driven by DRGs and reimbursement in order to help pull information together from both clinical and financial aspects to be reimbursed for treatments provided. In the 1990's the competition amongst healthcare organization and consolidation drove the need to integrate hospitals, providers and managed care. In the 2000's the main driers were with the need for more integration and the beginnings of outcome-based reimbursements for healthcare organizations.

The support of nursing informatics is important by healthcare leaders, physicians and staff. Every day and every minute, nurses are making important decisions about the care they are providing to patients. Using informatics helps save nurses time and helps prevent unnecessary steps in the care they are providing. There are systems that help pull vitals signs into the EHR to help save time as well as outline assessments making it easier and quicker for charting. With BMV medications can be administered safely and nurses can be assured that the proper medications are being administered to the right patient.

The clinical environment in all health care organization has increased in acuity and complexity of care, reimbursements have shrunk, and this requires nurses and all providers to be more efficient in their daily practice. These have challenges for many healthcare leaders in today's healthcare fields. Newer technology in healthcare helps nurses to fulfill their routine tasks and enable better outcomes and safer, quality of care. The leaders in healthcare need to consider these new technologies and how they can improve the workflow and the quality of work in their facility.

If Florence Nightingale was alive today she would be very happy with where technology has taken nursing and how it uses science, statistics and evidence-based care and interventions to save time and have the same goal that she had so many years ago of helping patients. Informatics has become an integral part of healthcare delivery, the evaluation and implementation of care in which supports safe, high quality, patient-centered care. Quality healthcare is a demand across the nation and a concern for many. Leaders in healthcare need to consider how important informatics tools are and meet the demands of the organization and assure staff they are behind them the whole way.

With HIMSS (Health Information and Management Systems Society) there is support for all healthcare organizations with the different implementations with the EHR and all of the steps involved with the integration of Meaningful Use. As well as NHSN and NDNQI databases to utilize the information obtained from other organizations to see where changes may need to be made to help the EHR and other technological systems work best for the organization.

A good nurse leader is someone that can inspire those around them to help reach a common goal, such as the implementation of more technology in the organization. It is important with everything evolving to think beyond the picture and see how one, as a leader, can be a part of the team, be supportive of the staff during the changes and give them positive feedback throughout the process. It is important to provide the staff with a supportive environment and most of all 'listen' to their concerns and focus on making the world that is changing around them easy for them to adapt to and improve their work flow while helping provide more efficient, safe, quality care to their patients.