Nurses always played an important role in delivering health care improvements to their patients. The development of technology allowed the nurses’ role to develop as well, which resulted in the creation of a nursing informatics (NI) branch. Hedba et al. (2018) define NI as a specialty that is responsible for nursing science’s integration with informational and analytical sciences to process and communicate data in nursing practice. NI generally belongs to a broader health information technology (HIT) concept. HIT has three aspects defined as its primary purposes: provide better care, make the care affordable, and pursue healthy populations and communities (McBride & Tietze, 2018). In this context, nurses aid in the technological transformation of the healthcare delivery system, particularly in the effective and efficient HIT deployment.
Several legislations have been implemented as part of the national strategy for quality improvement in healthcare. Among them are the Affordable care Act (ACA), the HITECH Act, and the electronic health records (HER) incentive program (McBride & Tietze, 2018). ACA was implemented in 2009 to address the unprecedentedly escalating prices of healthcare (McBride & Tietze, 2018). The main idea is to control the cost to the possible extent while improving the care services. A particular example of such control mechanisms is the creation of accountable care organizations. These organizations manage savings accounts for at-risk contracts, obliging the provider company to provide services at a fixed rate. In the meantime, ACA establishes the framework for qualitative performance evaluation – the requirement of a sufficient technology implemented stands among the crucial ones.
The HITECH act is responsible for promoting, adopting, and meaningfully using the HIT. The HITECH Act was implemented in 2009; it focuses on HIT assistance, college programs that offer HIT training, and grants that support the associated research (McBride & Tietze, 2018). It also solidifies the stages of meaningful use to ensure sufficient infrastructure and information for positive outcomes. In the context of HIT infrastructure, the EHR incentive program funds the implementation and meaningful use of EHR by healthcare providers and hospitals (McBride & Tietze, 2018). In short, the organization receives incentives for using a certified EHR and adherence to specific criteria of certified products.
NI is closely connected to the implementation and integration of mentioned acts. Nurses registered in this field partake in developing EHR products and their connection to direct patient care (Hedba et al., 2018). In addition, NI is partly responsible for the ongoing research toward achieving three main HIT goals (better and affordable care, healthy population). It includes contributing to the theoretical knowledge and medical community through studying and publishing articles on the associated topics. The current research topics regarding the NI in HIT involve predicting patterns in patient conditions, medication administration, and nursing documentation in EHR (McBride & Tietze, 2018). Last but not least is the registered nurses’ responsibility for the primary care delivery to the patients with the help of information technology.
In turn, advanced practice registered nurses adhere to a specific framework developed to underline their roles in HIT. The framework is called nursing education for the healthcare informatics (NEHI) model (McBride & Tietze, 2018). NEHI targets advanced practice healthcare delivery, narrowing it to patient safety and quality, analytics and data management, and associated technology (McBride & Tietze, 2018). The primary purpose of nursing education is the achievement of the national strategy for quality improvement in healthcare.
References
Hebda, T., Czar, P., & Hunter, K. (2018). Handbook of informatics for nurses and health care professionals (6th ed.). Pearson.
McBride, S., & Tietze, M. (2018). Nursing informatics for the advanced practice nurse: Patient safety, quality, outcomes, and interprofessionalism (2nd ed.). Springer Publishing Company.