Technologies have backed the concept of medical practices, such as nursing informatics that incorporates treatment science with other industries comprising information and computer science. Pioneers in nursing informatics have contributed to the improvement and growth of nursing informatics in various ways. The Technology Informatics Guiding Education Reform (TIGER) presents computer competency resources to enhance nursing practitioners’ appreciation of healthcare informatics (Ozbolt & Saba, 2008). Therefore, by concentrating on Dr. Jude Murphy and Patricia Abbott as the chosen pioneers of nursing informatics, this essay demonstrates the impact of these experts and their contribution to nursing informatics and practice and teachings drawn from their experiences.
These two pioneers of nursing informatics have significantly contributed to the nursing practice in numerous ways. For instance, Dr. Patricia disclosed the application of current systems to evaluate data and aspects that will boost patient results. The expert has further investigated patient safety concerns through ensuring informatics is utilized in various funded initiatives comprising Agency Healthcare Research and Quality (Ozbolt & Saba, 2008).
On the contrary, Judy has impacted the nursing practice by supervising the creation of innovations, such as electronic health record (HER), which is currently being utilized in healthcare and nursing. Furthermore, the scholar published numerous articles concentrating on automated medical documentation, employing technology to enhance evidence-based practice, and adopting innovations (Ozbolt & Saba, 2008).
For me as for a practicing nurse, the introduction of informatics has helped boost my strengths in communication, record keeping, and patient care which are essential in realizing patient safety and job satisfaction. However, since the introduction of informatics, my attitude has changed positively and I further recommend that nurses should be thoroughly trained on the change and the stakeholders should assess the nursing informatics to understand how to implement them as the current medical practitioners still face challenges in adapting to the transformations. Therefore, to familiarize nurses with technological transformations, healthcare institutions should employ online learning resources, such as Canvas, Scilearning, and edWeb to improve the practitioners’ skills in the medical informatics.
Since its introduction and integration into healthcare, healthcare informatics has presented various benefits and challenges to the medical industry that have changed the nursing practice through improving patient safety and job satisfaction. For instance, it has contributed significantly to minimizing cost in medical commerce since health informatics reduces treatment errors, thus increasing job satisfaction (Norman-Marzella, 2016).
Technologies, such as Computer Provider Order Entry Systems (CPOE), are designed to identify nursing faults, particularly mismatches, allergies, and duplication of consumer data, thus ensuring patient safety through improving nurse accuracy. Similarly, health informatics has facilitated the coordination skills among nurses enabling experts engaged in a patient’s treatment to record, share updates and findings, which is vital in patient safety and job satisfaction (Cesnik & Kidd, 2010). Finally, it has improved results as most of the manual jobs and tasks related to nursing have been automated, thus saving resources for nurses and improving job satisfaction.
Healthcare informatics has further impacted the management of health companies and practices. Nurses are now expected to inhibit specific skills to handle the technology at hand, the workflow of patient information, and data collection procedures. Therefore, the physicians need skills, such as understanding data collection, storage, and extraction (Association, 2015). Considering that nursing relies on communication, nurses are expected to improve their communication skills related to their clients. The move will enable the nurses to realize consumer and job satisfaction since effective communication instigates a cohesive connection between the two players.
In conclusion, the employment of healthcare informatics is changing patient treatment at a rapid pace. Most of the companies, governments and practitioners who have engaged in Technology Informatics Guiding Educational Reform have established capabilities for physicians in using technology to offer care.
However, the conception of technological changes has posed a challenge to some nurses including myself, thus necessitating intense training on nursing informatics to ensure a satisfactory result for the consumers. The influence of the pioneers in medical technology also continues to gain interest in the current nursing industry hence advocating for informatics implementations in medical practice. Therefore, despite nursing informatics presenting benefits for the medical practice, it should be investigated intensively before it is introduced to the field.
References
Association, A. N. (2015). Nursing informatics: Scope and standards of practice.
Cesnik, B., & Kidd, M. R. (2010). History of health informatics: A global perspective. Stud Health Technol Inform, 151, 3–8.
Norman-Marzella, N. (2016). EHR Technology: Improvement Review of a Small Rural Hospital. Journal of Health Science, 4, 277–282. Web.
Ozbolt, J. G., & Saba, V. K. (2008). A brief history of nursing informatics in the United States of America. Nursing Outlook, 56(5), 199–205. Web.