Nursing Informatics Applications

Applications of Nursing Informatics

• Nursing Informatics has changed nursing practice through documentation and care coordination.
• It helps identify areas for process improvement by tracking staffing, workflow, and communication.

Applications in Nursing Practice

• Computer-generated client documentation, electronic medical records (EMR), and monitoring.
• Work lists to remind staff of planned nursing interventions.
• Enhance documentation by using computer-generated client documentation.
• Electronic medical record (EMR) and Computer-based Patient Record (CPR).
• Monitoring devices that record vital signs and other measurements directly into the client record (EMR).
• Computer-generated nursing care plans and critical pathways.
• Automatic billing for supplies or procedures with nursing documentation.
• Reminders and prompts to ensure comprehensive charting.
• Provision of data to enable research directed at examining relationships between data elements and nursing outcomes.

In Clinical Implementation

• Assessment: computers can be used for assessment.
• Patient Monitoring: computers can be used for monitoring.
• Documentation: computers can be used for documentation.
• Telemedicine: computers can be used for telemedicine.

Uses of Informatics in Nursing Diagnosis, Planning, Implementation, and Evaluation

• Diagnosis: computers can generate a list of possible diagnoses for a patient with certain signs and symptoms.
• Planning: computers can display recommended interventions for selected diagnoses and expected outcomes.
• Implementation: computers can be used to record interventions and patient information and communicate with other departments.
• Evaluation: computers can be used to compare large amounts of patient data to identify outcomes and determine future actions.

Uses of Informatics in Nursing Administration

• Define the cost of nursing services.
• Evaluate quality assurance and outcomes analysis.
• Demonstrate the cost effectiveness of hospital: cost analysis and finding trends for budget purposes.
• Facilitate nursing processes.
• Justify roles of each hospital employee.
• Automated staff scheduling.
• E-mail for improved communication.
• Cost analysis and finding trends for budget purposes.

Uses of Informatics in Nursing Education

• Computerized record keeping.
• Interactive video technology.
• Distance learning - web-based courses.
• Formal nursing courses.

Uses of Informatics in Nursing Research

• Computerized literature searching.
• The ability to find trends in aggregate data.
• Use Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS).

Uses of Informatics in Patients Education

• Nursing informatics can be used for symptom management and patient education.
• Example: oncology unit, nursing informatics can be used to teach patients effective symptom management.

Uses of Informatics in Clinical Alert System

• The computerized clinical alert system can be used in conjunction with the hospital pharmacy.
• Alert both pharmacy and health staff when two or more drug prescriptions are incompatible.

Uses of Informatics in Patient Data

• Nursing informatics can be useful in a physician's clinic to manage every aspect of patient care.
• Applied to treatments, diagnostics, documentation, practice management, and referrals and as well as treatment and diagnostics results.

Uses of Informatics in Tele-Health

• Tele-health is the use of digital information and communication technologies to access health care services and manage health.
• Technologies can include computers and mobile devices, such as tablets and smart phones.