Healthcare Technology: A Summary Report Essay

In 1992, the Ameri shadow Nurses Associations (ANA) Congress of nurse use supported the recomm revokeation of the Council on Computer applications in nurse to officially recognize nursing informatics (NI) as a nursing specialty. The ANA soon defines NI as a specialty that integrates nursing science, computing machine science, and knowledge science to manage and communicate data, education, know conductge, and wisdom in nursing charge (American Nurses Association ANA, 2008).The purpose of this paper is to discuss the current use of healthc atomic number 18 information technology (HIT) in the acute allot setting by wondering a nurse working in HIT and analyze its regard on the professional nursing praxis. The Interview Jayne Thompson, RN, BC, MSN is employed at memorialisation Medical Center in Springfield, Illinois as a clinical Application Support Specialist. archives Medical Center, is a 504 bed, Magnet markated, level champion trauma center located in Central Ill inois and the flagship hospital of the Memorial Health System, which is comprised of four hospitals and affiliated with Southern Illinois University School of Medicine.A one-hour interview with Jayne was scheduled and held on March 13th 2013 at 700 AM in her office. Interviewee Jayne has worked at Memorial Medical Center for twenty-five years and began her career as a staff nurse on the cardiac surgery unit where she developed a passion for nursing inquiry. This led to a position as a research nurse for the Prairie fosterage and Research Cooperative (PERC) in Springfield, IL where she coordinated clinical trials on cardiac stents.As a research nurse, Jaynes need for hookup and sharing data spurred an interest in health care informatics and in 2008 she enrolled in Walden Universitys Masters degree program in health care Informatics. Upon graduation in 2010 Jayne moved into her current position as Clinical Application Support Specialist. In 2012 she do itd her certification in Nu rsing Informatics. Jaynes responsibilities include ensuring the effective performance of the computer information clay, Cerner, which is use within the Memorial Health System.She sees her consumption as a inter-group communication between nursing and information technology (IT) to guarantee that nursing is correspond in decisions that impact clinical systems in the acute care setting. Jayne gathers goal users (users for which the product is designed) engages, suggestions and, criticisms regarding the workflow process and brings them to the attention of the IT department. Together they build, trial and tool computer system changes, which are then taken back to the end user. Education and TrainingThe American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) describes an informatics nurse medical specialist (INS) as a masters prepared nurse. In frame to qualify to take the ANCC exam, a nurse must be, at minimum, bachelor-at-armss prepared (nursing or other related field of study), complete a minimum number of hours of work experience and graduate study. before long two designations for certification in NI are procurable through the ANCC. Nurses certifying with a baccalaureate degree or higher degree in nursing use the designator RN, BC while nurses certifying with a degree in a related field, i. . computer sciences use the designator RN, C. (Hunt, Sproat, & Kitzmiller, 2004). The nurse, new to an informatics role needs to become familiar with current definitions, literature and know the electron orbit and standards of the profession as established by the ANA (ANA, 2008). Following the completion of her MSN, Jayne needed her role as Clinical Application Support Specialist shape up defined based on the scope of responsibilities and relationships expected for the proposed implementations of the Cerner system. ChallengesJayne sees advancing tell based nursing (EBN) as one of the biggest repugns facing nursing. The INS must think on converting available data infor mation into practical, entrance moneyible information that can enlighten practice. This is accomplished through alerts and computerized decision support (CDS), which make evidence-based guidelines available at the point of care (Simpson, 2007) Finding the best tools and methods for managing vast amounts of information requires the INS to develop methods for storing data, in both the short and long term and garnering information and knowledge eeded to support clinical practice, research and education. A second challenge facing the INS is the cost of delivering health care. Health care costs are a burden to society as a whole and apt(predicate) to addition along with the number of uninsured individuals (McCormick et al. , 2007). Of concern is a shortfall of registered nurses projected to spread across the country between 2009 and 2030 (American Association of College of Nursing AACN, 2012). The INS serves as a liaison with nursing and IT in developing technology and providing educa tional programs necessary to support care delivery.The goal is to optimize the living and projected nursing workforce and ensure continuing quality of care amid the anticipated nursing shortages. Role of Information Systems Informational systems (IS) deal with the development, use and anxiety of an organizations information technology (IT) infrastructure (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2012, p. 29). As an INS, Jayne acknowledges that nurses devolve the majority of their time providing direct care to patients and hope that an EHR will increase this patient-interaction time and consequently the quality of care delivered.Conversely, providing care requires the documentation of clinical information as an inherent cyclorama of routine care and is demand from both professional and legal standpoints. Nurses, according to Jayne consider an IS to be cost-effective if the system reduces their documentation time, even if the time savings do non translate into better patient care. Developing and introducing a new aspect of an IS for clinical practice can be frustrating, according to Jayne who often sees health care professionals preferring to work in silos (operating in isolation from others), rather than collaborating with other professionals in related fields of practice.Information comprises a wide range of aspects including patient-specific data, research information and procedure information. IS offer tremendous opportunities to enhance clinical practice and appropriateness of care and to increase efficiency and effectiveness in healthcare organizations (Oroviogoicoechea, Elliott, & Watson, 2008). It is important to develop and refine functional ISs that meet the needs of todays healthcare industry while evolving to handle future demands of the healthcare community. Role of PrivacyPatients cite privacy, together with security, as their issues of greatest concern about electronic establishs. The ANA Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements mandates that nurses protect a patients right to privacy and confidentiality (American Nurses Association ANA, 2010). The use of an electronic health saucer (EHR) makes it difficult for an unauthorized person to gain access. According to Jayne, the IT department serves as the gatekeeper for data security. Within the Memorial Health System a provider needs a login name and a password to access the Cerner EHS.Additionally, Cerner maintains an audit trail, required by the privacy rules of the Health Insurance Portability and answerableness Act (HIPAA), that documents who has accessed individual records, as well as what part of the record was viewed. Firewalls and antivirus software protect the organization from hackers and viruses, encryption of data exiting the health system is essential since under (HIPPA) if data is stolen but encrypted the organization is exempt from fines. animal(prenominal) access to computers and software is a foundation of computer security.Placement of computer monitors, privacy screens and a 30-second time-out feature prevent inadvertent screening of protected health information (PHI). Greatest Learning EHRs gravel a huge impact on nursing documentation. Although nurses are the largest group of end-users they have had minimal input in the design of EHRs. The INS works synergistically with nursing and IT to design and implement documentation software, which is integrated into the clinical workflow and functions optimally in clinical practice.If this collaboration does not occur, the frustrations of nurses may lead to an EHRpractice cranny similar to the long-existing theorypractice gap, or nurses may veer their clinical practice to fit in with rigid systems, thereby losing the face and soul of nursing as a profession (Stevenson, Nilsson, Petersson, & Johansson, 2010, p. 70). To ensure that the mettle and complexity of nursing are not lost, the INS must be witting of the clinical needs of the nurse and the benefits of the IS which best suppor ts patient care.