Healthcare informatics is a multidisciplinary field that makes use of health information technology to oversee the improvement of healthcare through a combination of higher efficiency, higher quality coupled with new opportunities. Nursing in the present day makes use of informatics to perform a lot of functions. Nurses are now advised to ensure that they learn efficiently how this system works.
There are several areas in nursing which utilize informatics. In the day-to-day activities, nursing is used in analysis, research and evaluation, documentation of records, administration of drugs and much more. In Analysis, it may be used to track the flow of data within a particular system, which is at most times customized to the end-user needs(American Nurses Association, (2008). For example, a nursing analyst working in a hospice setting can use informatics to track health consumer data so as to establish a case mix weight to determine nursing personnel allocations.
As a nurse, I can also use nursing informatics when doing research and evaluation(American Nurses Association, 2008). Evaluations can be carried out when trying to make a decision about a clinical issue. Research can also be carried out when trying to learn more about a condition or when one comes across a vocabulary that may seem unfamiliar or confusing. Informatics canbe very efficient at this point.
Informatics is also used on a daily basis in keeping or documenting the records. For example, the patients’ healthcare records can be scanned into a computer, patient’s diagnosis can be entered into a database and also the patient’s checkup dates can also be documented (Thede, 2012).
Informatics can also be used in the administration of drugs using the Bar Code Medication Administration (BCMA) System. This helps in the prevention of human errors when giving prescriptions. It ensures that the right patient is given the right medication, at the right time, the right dosage and by the right route as well (Kristen, 2015).
It is thus evident that nursing can go a great mile due to the integration of nursing science with computer and cognitive sciences. The extraction of information as well as storage has been made a lot easier. Nurses are now able to go about their duties carefully with well-kept records and thus there is little or no confusion unlike in the past when confusion was the order of the day.
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