Discussion on Informatics Board Reply
Informatics has been one of the most valuable assets in the field of nursing; mostly in promoting health care services. According to Rouse (2018), health informatics is a new technological practice that is currently used in health centers for acquiring, studying, and managing health information and data to ensure that better healthcare services have been achieved. Here, the role of technology and its integrated sciences been effectively applied in the nursing field. Notably, informatics has been a fast-increasing tool as technology advances over time.
Undeniably, informatics is profoundly applied in many areas including education and in providing healthcare services. In the healthcare field, informatics is mostly used in differentiated backgrounds including public health, pharmacy, dentistry, computer science, and improving the quality of life. However, in the field of nursing, informatics is used in maintaining the electronic health records (EHR), designing and training other on how to use this new system, acting as a consultant in this field, developing new policies within the nursing field, and managing outcomes that result from the healthcare activities.
Although informatics plays a vital role in the nursing field, the most use of informatics in my field is electronic recording. According to Lown and Rodriguez (2012), electronic record involves documentation of patient’s information through a comprehensive patient care system in electronic devices mainly for medical purposes only. Unlike other methods of recording data, the EHR data recording involves recording information about patients on an online platform which is than entrusted to nurses to handle that data. Here, the information that is received in the EHRs is then used when needed and can be shared from one facility to the other and from one physician to another (Häyrinen, Saranto & Nykänen, 2008). Notably, EHRs holds various benefits to nurses. For instance, the EHRs comes with new improvements such as increasing the facility’s productivity. Moreover, this system is faster and timely, cheap, accurate, competent, secure, easy to use, and provides up to date information which gives reasons why it is profoundly recommended (Hoffman, 2016).
One of the primary areas where I can apply EHR is in the pre-hospital care. An excellent example of pre-hospital care use of EHR is the ambulance services (Koufi, Malamateniou, & Vassilacopoulos, (2010). Here, nurses would be feeding in data and physical conditions of the patients before they reach to the hospital. In these ambulances, the role of EHR would be to ensure patient data sharing, injury /illness prevention, and designing of treatment methods. In conclusion, if nurses can effectively apply the informatic tool, they can lead to a developed health care service.
References
Häyrinen, K., Saranto, K., & Nykänen, P. (2008). Definition, structure, content, use, and impacts of electronic health records: a review of the research literature. International journal of medical informatics, 77(5), 291-304.
Hoffman, S. (2016). EHR systems: Attributes, benefits, and shortcomings. Electronic Health Records and Medical Big Data, 9-37. doi:10.1017/9781316711149.002
Koufi, V., Malamateniou, F., & Vassilacopoulos, G. (2010). Ubiquitous access to cloud emergency medical services. In Information Technology and Applications in Biomedicine (ITAB), 2010 10th IEEE International Conference on (pp. 1-4). IEEE.
Lown, B. A., & Rodriguez, D. (2012). Commentary: Lost in translation? How electronic health records structure communication, relationships, and meaning. Academic Medicine, 87(4), 392-394.
Rouse, M. (2018). What is health informatics? WhatIs.com. Retrieved from https://searchhealthit.techtarget.com/definition/health-informatics
- are you stating if ambulance personnel were able to enter data in real time with a system that interfaced with the ER at the facility, it would allow the ER staff to see what is happening to the patient during transport so the ER would be ready to treat the patient upon arrival, eliminating or decreasing the need for a lengthy report? PLEASE REPLY TO THIS QUESTION
