In nursing, the health information systems (HIS) constitute a system that works to capture, store and manage the patient data with the option of transmitting it from one healthcare provider to another in the process of delivering care (Toromanovic, Hasanovic & Masic, 2010). The purpose of the topic is to consider how best the HIS can be employed in individual hospitals to facilitate nurses to provide quality care to their patients. The topic also facilitates the evaluation of how the entry of HIS impacted nursing care based on the functions that could completely be integrated into the system.
The topic of Health Information Systems has had profound implications for nursing and healthcare in general. The concepts introduced through the HIS have made nursing care and healthcare delivery model to be heavily dependent on data when making the different decisions involved. The data utilized currently is more complex as compared to the previous versions of data that were used in the healthcare sector the entry of the information systems made it possible for the personnel to be able to analyze more data (Bates & Bitton, 2010). The topic has also contributed to the debate on how the time taken to deliver nursing care can be reduced to improve the quality provided. The issue of the HIS has also served to improve the clinical documentation and reduced duplication of information hence resulting in better utilization of existing resources. In general, healthcare operations have been improved based on the information generated from the use of HIS components hence reducing the number of repetitive laboratory tests carried in different visits.
Topic Examples
Topic 1: “Electronic nursing documentation as a strategy to improve quality of patient care”
The topic has several components that enable it to address nursing-related issues. The diagnostic focus of this topic is the provision of quality patient care which in essence describes the human response to the issue at hand. The response focuses on both the nurses’ attitude towards care as well as that of the patients as both groups are likely to consider the outcomes of care by the level of quality achieved in the process (Kelley, Brandon & Docherty, 2011). The cause of the topic is based on the need for nurses to ensure that the quality of care provided is further enhanced to align with both organizational goals as well as the professional goals. The defining characteristic of the achievement of the process is the improvement of the quality of care.
Topic 2: “The future of health information technology in the patient-centered medical home”
The main component of the topic is focused on evaluating the health information systems and the role that they play in ensuring that patient-centered care is provided in the medical homes. The response for the topic seeks to figure the main contributions of the health systems in the medical home and deciding on how the impact will contribute towards the change of nursing care (Ludwick & Doucette, 2009). The defining characteristics of the topic are the new developments that need to be included in the information systems to enable it to meet the objectives of the medical homes.
Personal Experience
During my sessions working in the hospital, I have had several interactions with the health information system with each occurrence yielding either a positive or a negative experience. This section will include detailed accounts of two experiences and an evaluation of how the situation could have been improved.
One of my negative experiences about the HIS is based on the incidences that occurred during the introduction of the system in one of the facilities where I worked. The hospital administration failed to conduct a thorough evaluation of the existing skills set at the beginning of the project. As a result, the hospital system was rolled out with minimal consideration of the nurses’ ability to use it during their work. Since most of the nurses were slow in their typing, they ended up using their notebooks to document their work and later record the information in the systems at the end of their shift. The situation led to delays in handover during the end of the shift which further compromised the continuity of care in the organization.
Some of the measures that could have been taken to avert the situation included carrying out a pre-project survey to determine the ability of the nurses to use the new HIS. Based on the outcomes of the survey, the hospital should have organized for training to address the skills that were deficient among the nursing staff (Ludwick & Doucette, 2009).
One of the positive experiences that are related to the HIS is a situation where the system was used to document the feeding practices and weight gain for the preterm infants in a hospital. When managing one per-term patient, the mother expressed dissatisfaction with the decision to take their child off the incubator once they had acquired the recommended weight. She lamented that her baby would die as a result of the decision and that it was wrong for the nurses to implement such a decision without concrete evidence. The nurse manager assured her that we had been tracking her baby’s weight and showed her a copy of the records and analysis from the systems. When they further discussed the information in the literature regarding the management of such patients, the mother was convinced that the nursing team had made the right decision.
During this case, it would have been better to inform the patient about the decision to move the patient from the incubator so that they could participate in the decision. The provision of the data on the patient’s progress from the beginning of the care process would have also helped to ease the anxiety when implementing the change in nursing management.
Conclusion
The HIS is critical to the decision-making process in nursing care, and hence it encompasses four critical functions based on the components included in its operations, data generation, data compilation, data analysis, and synthesis as well as communication. The main aim of the topic is to evaluate how health information systems can continually be employed to improve the quality of nursing care. The topic has impacted healthcare and nursing care as it has increased access to patient data and enabled its analysis which in turn led to the growth of evidence-based practice which is informed by the existing data.
The anticipated employment situation is to take roles in nursing administration. The role will involve managing the nursing team and facilitate the delivery of care to the patients. The lessons learned will be critical as they will enable me to make decisions that are based on data as outlined in the principles of evidence-based practice. The lessons learned will also enable me to keep researching avenues through which the health information system can be integrated into the delivery of nursing care by my team to ensure the continued improvement of quality.
References
Bates, D. W., & Bitton, A. (2010). The future of health information technology in the patient-centered medical home. Health Affairs, 29(4), 614-621.
Kelley, T. F., Brandon, D. H., & Docherty, S. L. (2011). Electronic nursing documentation as a strategy to improve quality of patient care. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 43(2), 154-162.
Ludwick, D. A., & Doucette, J. (2009). Adopting electronic medical records in primary care: lessons learned from health information systems implementation experience in seven countries. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 78(1), 22-31.
Toromanovic, S., Hasanovic, E., & Masic, I. (2010). Nursing information Systems. Materia Socio-Medica, 22(3), 168–171.