Why nursing informatics?
Recently I am enrolled in a course called Nursing Informatics. I took this course as an elective because I wasn't too interested in another elective genetic course. Frankly I also thought that genetics would be too difficult for me. As I begin the first week, I thought 'oh man more work'. But I do love nursing even with all its work. You could say that I am determine to grow and develop a better understanding in every arena of nursing. So the topic for this blog is why nursing informatics?
"Nursing informatics are a combination of computer science, cognitive science and nursing science" all spliced together to have better efficiency for our patients and the profession. To make it simple, we rely on all these information to guide what we do in nursing. Nurses often uses nursing theories and skills acquired from practice, information that is easily accessible and reliable for use in nursing intervention, and interfacing with technology like computer software to facilitate ease in communication and accuracy of care given. Dee McGonigle and Kathleen Mastrian asserted that "nursing professionals are knowledge workers who are information dependent. And as healthcare continue to evolve in an increasingly competitive information marketplace, professionals, the knowledge workers, must be well prepared to make significant contributions by harnessing appropriate, timely information. "
Many times nurses rely on their own knowledge to choose an intervention for their patients but sometimes that knowledge can be inadequate so we access information from peers or search them via web. The problem is looking for accurate and safe information. How does a nurse know if that information is accurate or not? Hard to tell! So nurses must also learn how to use a clinical data base or nursing practice guidelines that maybe on clinical informations system.
Hmm..I know, suddenly I begin to think why this course was not a requirement for me to take ? Look how important it is! As nursing evolves and use of technology seem to evolve as well, we nurses must have accurate information and become technologically savvy for the most effective care.
A part of nursing informatics, nurses must also learn how to manage information. There were discussions over ownership of health records, and concerns over access and security. The question was "who 'owns' the Electronic Health Record. Is it the patient, the health system, the government, the insurance company, the health care provider, the owner of the computer system in which the EHR resides?" Of course I think that patients should have access to their own medical records and it is rightly theirs. But to be able to access those information developers of computer system must make it ideally easy to use for patients who will be users. These systems must also have passwords security and privacy protection for users so that information does not leak out.
McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. (2009). Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, LLC.
No comments:
Post a Comment