Information technology (IT) develops rapidly, and novelties are being implemented in almost all industries, including healthcare. Aside from the innovative tools and treatment approaches, IT is integrated into facilities’ administration and data management (Ball et al., 2011). The two latter segments are tied to the nursing work, therefore the practitioners must have the IT-related skills to empower their efficiency. Using technology is critical for healthcare administration because it helps reduce the human error risk, makes appointment management less time-consuming, gathers and stores a significant volume of crucial data (McNicol et al., 2018).
The demand for novel tools can be viewed on the acute care setting example where information collection can assist in the decision-making. This paper aims to explore how an IT initiative would impact the urgent care practice by providing data analysis, evaluating the barriers, identifying management, resourcing, and leadership strategies for implementation.
Acute care setting is a healthcare practice where the patients receive intense yet short-term treatment, and it commonly includes the emergency, coronary, natal, cardiology units. IT is in high demand for these practices because the client’s experience is life-threatening, and the decisions must be made quickly and correctly. Indeed, technology that collects and proceeds with the volume of data humans are incapable of managing would significantly improve the decisions’ efficiency (Lee et al., 2019).
Nursing practitioners with data collection and analysis skills would make proper decisions quickly and assist with higher effectiveness because they will consistently exercise evidence-based conclusions (Lee et al., 2019). An acute care setting requires connecting with several databases to implement the selected IT initiative, address the information disclosure policies, and educate the personnel on how to administrate the novel system.
The hypothetical IT database for acute care is software that retrieves all health records about a patient to help practitioners in differential diagnosis and treatment choices. The potential barriers to implementing such a system are the ethical side of accessing client’s private information and the difficulty of configuring the program with the computers and other devices of a setting (McNicol et al., 2018). These limitations are significant and require addressing before integrating a database into the acute care setting. The informatics nurse must educate personnel about the internal processes of the software, such as data sorting, retrieval, calculations, and analysis.
Proper management for implementation and facilitation for the personnel is crucial for successfully integrating the IT initiative into the acute care practice. The access to new software will firstly be given to the leaders and in the testing mode to learn how to use it and identify how the technology can assist in their field of responsibility (Ball et al., 2011). Then, the management strategy would require creating learning algorithms and including the theoretical information necessary for understanding how the program works (McNicol et al., 2018). The resources needed to overcome the barriers are the information access policies, non-disclosure agreements for ones with access to the system, and case study-based instructions to assist practitioners in technology education.
The leadership strategies must address the encouragement for the practitioners to integrate the novelty into their working process. Indeed, the IT initiative’s trustworthiness, security, and the necessity for better healthcare outcomes must be deliberately pointed out and approved (Ball et al., 2011). Furthermore, TIGER Informatics Competencies such as information literacy and management would be taught to practitioners to work with a new system (T.I.G.E.R., 2011). The leadership strategy is required to evaluate if these proficiencies are well-developed in the team and create a collaborative educational approach for empowering the implementation.
The IT initiative implementation can address the demand for analyzing information in the acute care setting. Database software with access to patient records and features to make calculations or decisions would benefit differential diagnosis and treatment selection. Management and leadership strategies must include encouragement to upgrade the current practices, educate personnel about security and TIGER Informatics Competencies, and develop a culture of exercising IT in daily operations.
References
Ball, M. J., Douglas, J. V., Hinton Walker, P., DuLong, D., Gugerty, B., Hannah, K. J.,… Troseth, M. R. (Eds.) (2011). Nursing informatics: Where technology and caring meet (4th ed.). Springer-Verlag.
Lee, S., Jeon, M. Y., & Kim, E. O. (2019). Implementation of structured documentation and standard nursing statements: Perceptions of nurses in acute care settings. CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing, 37(5), 266-275. Web.
McNicol, L., Hutchinson, A. F., Wood, B., Botti, M., & Redley, B. (2018). An exploration of patients’ experience of nurses’ use of point-of-care information technology in acute care. Patient Experience Journal, 5(1), 76-89. Web.
T.I.G.E.R. Technology Informatics Guiding Education Reform. (2011). Informatics competencies collaborative team. Web.