Philippine Nurses Association of North Carolina

By: Jennifer M. Dizon, RN, MAN

(Published 2006)

Nursing Informatics. This is a term we hear more often in our practice of nursing. If we look around in our work environment, we see it everywhere. But before we can identify how it affects us daily, we need a definition.

Nursing Informatics is the application of computer technology and information science in the practice of nursing. If facilitates the gathering and communication of data in the provision of nursing care to patients.

Now that we have a definition, can Nursing Informatics be recognized in our work area? If a computer is used in any way to access and share patient information (as dictated by HIPAA) and to coordinate all aspects of nursing care of our patient, then Nursing Informatics is being practiced.

The goal of Nursing Informatics is to optimize the use of information to support nurses in the delivery of care in an acute or community setting to individual patients, families and the community.

In our current world of high technology, it is not feasible to rely on paper documentation. Data in paper documents is difficult to collect and process. If data is ever collected, it requires an extremely tedious and long time to process. With Nursing Informatics, once information is entered in the system, this information can be manipulated in several different ways to produce significant reports. Reports are essential in the analysis and improvement of care we provide to our patients.

The information entered in the electronic systems not only impacts the nursing profession but also other aspects of the health care system. The hospitals or the institutions can use the data to review and analyze patient and employee satisfaction, budget, expenses, and profit. The different electronic systems communicate with each other to deliver optimum patient care by the coordination of different disciplines. Nursing, Pharmacy, Medicine and other health related professions can “talk” to each other electronically on the care of patients.

The most important objective of Nursing Informatics is Patient Safety. As nurses, we have always been considered the patients’ advocates. Based on the Gallup Survey, we have been consistently rated by the public as the most trusted health care professional. We ranked #1 for Honesty and Ethics. Nurses have been ranked higher than any other profession in four of the five years that the profession has been included in the poll. Nurses came in second to firefighters in 2001 — in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Nursing Informatics is one tool the nurses can utilize to uphold this public trust by making sure that not only quality care but safe care is provided to the patients. This is accomplished by prompting the users (nurses, physicians, pharmacists, medical technologists, etc.) to follow a clinical pathway designed to provide safe patient care. It also provides warnings to the users when an unusual task/order is made thus making the users to stop, think and ask questions before proceeding.

Nursing Informatics had been in existence since the 80’s and its presence and importance is being felt more today than ever. In so saying, Nursing Informatics will be here to stay to facilitate the workload of nurses. But in the middle of this is still the PATIENT. Let us not lose sight that computer technology will never replace the nurses’ Tender Loving Care (TLC) coupled with the nurses’ judgment.