The Assignment: (4-5 pages not including the title and reference page)
In a 4- to 5-page project proposal written to the leadership of your healthcare organization, propose a nursing informatics project for your organization that you advocate to improve patient outcomes or patient-care efficiency. Your project proposal should include the following:
Describe the project you propose.
Identify the stakeholders impacted by this project.
Explain the patient outcome(s) or patient-care efficiencies this project is aimed at improving and explain how this improvement would occur. Be specific and provide examples.
Identify the technologies required to implement this project and explain why.
Identify the project team (by roles) and explain how you would incorporate the nurse informaticist in the project team.
Use APA format and include a title page and reference page.
Use the Safe Assign Drafts to check your match percentage before submitting your work
Week 3 Assignment: The Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies
Describe the project you propose.
The proposed project seeks to determine the current status of nursing informatics within the organization. Health care delivery and systems are dynamic with technology playing an important role. To be more precise, health technology pace is ever increasing so that nurses must have the matching technical skills and competence to appropriately integrate and use the technology. Nursing informatics is a unique specialization in nursing resources and has been recognized for decades as an independence area. There is an understanding that nursing informatics involves the application of information technology in nursing practice, management and education, to include the integration of nursing science, computer science and information science to provide nursing work, knowledge and communication management. Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies Essay Paper Over time, nursing informatics has evolved and added many fields to include telenursing, e-learning, intelligent systems, electronic patient records, security, information science, computer science, imaging informatics, information systems, human-computer interaction, decision support systems, patient care, ethics, and data recovery (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2018).
While nursing informatics has evolved and become increasingly important in ensuring the best patient outcomes and patient care efficiencies, not all nurses have the competencies to leverage nursing informatics. Three specific competencies will be of interest to the proposed project. Firstly, competency levels of informatics skills to include the interpretation of information flow within the health care organization, development of standards and database structures to facilitate research, administration, education and clinical care activities, and the preparation of process flow information flow charts for the different aspects of the clinical system. Also, it includes the development of analytical and innovative techniques for scientific inquiry in data organization methods and research designs targeted at understanding how computer technology has impacted nursing and supports informatics developments. The informatics literacy skills will be investigated among nurses (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2018).
Secondly, informatics knowledge levels with a focus on whether the nurses recognize the importance and use of nursing data to improve practice, and recognition of the fact that computers can facilitate nursing care. In addition, the nurses will be evaluated for knowledge of ethical decisions in computing, and value of their involvement in the design, selection, implementation and evaluation of health computer systems. Besides that, the nurses will be evaluated for knowledge of how to determine the reliability and limitations of computerized systems. Thirdly, computer skills that include conducting computerized searches and retrieval of patient information, safe use of computer technology and networks, use of information technologies to improve nursing care, patient care documentation, and use of telecommunication devices. The identified project information will be collected through questionnaires delivered to randomly selected sample of nurses (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2018).
Identify the stakeholders impacted by this project.
Four stakeholders are impacted by the project. Firstly, nurses are impacted by the project since it will determine their ability to competently apply nursing informatics concepts. The results of the project will be useful in determining their deficiencies with regards to nursing informatics and interventions that can be applied to improve nursing informatics application within the organization. Secondly, policymakers will be impacted by the project since they are responsible for developing appropriate policies and the result of the project would be useful in helping them to determine appropriate policies. If the project determines that nurses have significant knowledge deficiencies, then the policymakers can intervene to ensure that nursing education prepares nurses with the right informatics competencies. Thirdly, patients will be impacted by the project as it will identify shortcomings in the capacity of nurses to provide competent care. With the shortcomings clearly identified, interventions can be implemented to ensure that nurses are equipped to leverage nursing informatics to deliver the best possible patient care that guarantees the best care outcomes. Finally, payors will be impacted as the project results will influence their actuarial activities targeted at streamlining health care delivery and ensuring value for money. The results of the project will help payors to identify the areas that they can invest in to leverage the value of nursing informatics (Hoffman, 2017).
Explain the patient outcome(s) or patient-care efficiencies this project is aimed at improving and explain how this improvement would occur.
The project seeks to determine nurses’ informatics competencies. Through identifying their level of competencies, the project will point out areas of deficiencies that would then be targeted to improve nurses’ informatics competencies. With the improved competencies, nurses will be able to leverage informatics with a focus on making use of technologies to improve patient care efficiencies (Stanley, 2017). To be more precise, the improvement in the competencies will allow nurses to make the best use of health care information to provide better care. This will be evident in six key areas. Firstly, it will enhance continuity of care and end-to-end treatment through enabling nurses to create processes and protocols that ensure proper interactions and communications. Also, it will help nurses to have the insight and context from health care information with a view of the truth that ensures excellent continuity of care. Secondly, it will reduce medical costs and errors by ensuring that nurses communications have clear critical facts, deliver information to the right persons, and deliver complete information (Lau & Kuziemsky, 2016). Thirdly, it will improve the capacity of nurses to select and test new medical technologies as they will be well positioned to understand the true value of data and provide informed recommendations. Fourthly, it will determine and provide training and learning needs that will be integrated into external education, ongoing in-house training, or onboarding to deal with specific gaps between ability and expectations. Fifthly, it will improve clinical procedures, processes, protocols and policies. Nurses will be able to measure and analyze how the organization is performing with a focus on the patient outcomes. The nurses would then be able to make changes that improve care, avoid bottlenecks and streamline activities. Finally, it will align best practices with clinical care and workflows. It will allow nurses to be involved in process design, new diagnostics and treatment plans, and clinical workflow reviews with a focus on determining the actions that lead to most value-based, patient-centered care (Stewart & DeNisco, 2019).
Identify the technologies required to implement this project and explain why.
The project will engage nurses using questionnaires to collect information. It will require two technologies to implement. The first technology is a computer that will be used in preparing the project documents, questionnaires, and report. The second technology is a printer that will be used to prepare hard copies of the questionnaires and project report.
Identify the project team (by roles) and explain how you would incorporate the nurse informaticists in the project team.
The project will have two team members. The first team member is the project leader who is responsible for overseeing all the details of the project. The main responsibilities are preparing the project activity plan that are matched with the project objectives/goals and realistic timeframe. The second team member will have a supporting role that helps with proofreading documents, ensuring that the data analysis focuses on the project goals, and performing other project activities as determined by the project leader (Moran, Burson & Conrad, 2020).
References
Hoffman, S. (2017). Electronic health records and medical big data: law and policy. Cambridge University Press.
Lau, F. & Kuziemsky, C. (2016). Handbook of EHealth Evaluation: An Evidence-Based Approach. University of Victoria.
McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. (2018). Nursing Informatics and the Foundation of Knowledge (4th ed.). Jones and Bartlett Learning.
Moran, K., Burson, R., & Conrad, D. (2020). The Doctor of Nursing Practice Project: A Framework for Success (3rd ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC.
Stanley, D. (2017). Clinical Leadership in Nursing and Healthcare: Values into Action (2nd ed.). John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Stewart, J., & DeNisco, S. (Eds.) (2019). Role Development for the Nurse Practitioner (2nd ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC. Impact of Nursing Informatics on Patient Outcomes and Patient Care Efficiencies Essay Paper