Introduction
Leadership, technology, and informatics are important components of effective nursing practice. To maintain excellent treatment and patient safety, nurses should instill practical leadership skills in their everyday activities. Nursing leadership is only effective if the entire team promotes outstanding patient care. Technology and informatics are vital in nursing because they organize and distribute accessible data, information, and knowledge. Nursing and other medical agencies are rapidly using emerging research practices and computerized provider order entry systems to facilitate quality patient care. Due to rapidly changing technology breakthroughs, nursing informatics and good leadership are necessary for positive patient outcomes.
Leadership
Leadership is about creating a vision and encouraging others to change for the better. It involves encouraging people to overcome institutional, political, and resource barriers. Leadership is defined by its ability to influence people and motivate them to achieve a goal. It is described as a complex and multidimensional profession in nursing literature (Collins et al., 2017). It includes providing patient support and guidance, effective communication, motivation, cooperation, coordination, and advocacy.
Nurturing leadership requires displaying commitment to assigned duties and functions, providing advice, and guaranteeing the quality of care. It is about preserving a vision, achieving it, and empowering others. Nurse leaders must have confidence, dedication to patient care, good communication, and team-building skills (Collins et al., 2017). Patient-centered care and clear communication between medical practitioners, patients, and their relatives are at the heart of these initiatives. These techniques promote diligence among caregivers by discouraging a situation of merely showing up to work and obeying a nurse leader’s directions.
Technology and Informatics
Technology and informatics are transforming healthcare by enhancing data collection, analysis, and utilization for medical professionals and organizations. Effective care coordination requires the application of technology and health informatics. They help nurses manage staffing, work plans, and communication to enhance existing operations (Giddens, 2018). This can also help maintain the optimum size of the workforce, which is important for patient care. Patients will suffer if the nurse-to-patient ratio is too low, and nurse managers can avoid burnout by maintaining optimal levels. Ensuring accuracy and elaboration of patient needs and treatment preferences is an important emphasis of informatics, despite nurses’ jobs being unchanged.
The medical field has evolved rapidly to meet new problems in the nursing practice. Like other healthcare sectors, nursing uses technology and informatics to address long-standing issues while influencing nurses’ care for patients (Giddens, 2018). Documentation is another way informatics has changed nurses’ work, over and above the removal of paperwork and manually updated charts. Instead, nurses frequently preserve notes and clinical information in electronic medical records and other readily accessible technical means.
Influence on Clinical Judgment
Nurse leaders encounter issues that need critical thinking because they make clinical judgments that have far-reaching impacts on patients’ lives. In a critical assessment, nurse leaders gather and analyze information to determine clients who need help (Collins et al., 2017). These signs alert the nurse to take necessary action to assist the patient. Technology and health informatics skills support clinical judgment by ensuring the provision of quality care. Despite the existing limitations, informatics has a significant impact on improving nursing practice by improving patient data availability, general competency, and reducing mistakes. Analyzing huge volumes of patient safety and outcome data helps determine future therapy choices for certain disorders and circumstances.
Emerging Health Initiatives
Nursing leadership helps nurses efficiently navigate complex and evolving medical systems while addressing issues such as standard patient healthcare, cost, affordability, fairness, and access. Nurse leaders must be adequately trained and prepared to make appropriate judgments at all times (Collins et al., 2017). For example, the AACN-Wharton Executive Leadership Program covers managing and leading change, convincing and inspiring diverse stakeholders, creating value innovation, and building strategic relationships in high-stakes scenarios. Enrolling in the Emerging Nurse Leader (ENL) curriculum under the Australian School of Nursing enables student nurses to build their leadership skills and confidence. There is emerging research on nurse administration at the patient’s bedside. The Institute of Medicine research states that nurses are vital in ensuring good communication among medical specialties and ensuring patient care stability (Murray et al., 2018). Nursing leadership focuses on inter-professional collaboration with patients, families, and other stakeholders rather than individual leaders.
CPOE, or computerized provider order entry, is a system that allows physicians to electronically input health orders. Technology and informatics are crucial in nursing care and coordination. Moreover, technology and informatics protect patient safety and confidentiality while transforming data into knowledge. Incorporating informatics into evidence-based practices improves patient care (Giddens, 2018). Using technology and informatics, for example, can quickly identify changes in a patient’s condition if vital information is easily available. The data on patients’ acute symptoms are excellently interpreted, structured, and arranged.
Advancing Workplace Communication
Immediate, clear, and effective communication is critical in healthcare leadership. Patients’ health and safety depend on leaders’ exact knowledge of problem identification and management. Evaluating the present manner of information exchange is one of the techniques for enhancing communication in healthcare. Gap analysis helps identify opportunities for improvement in healthcare communication. Rebuilding the communication process also improves collaboration for technology and informatics advancement (Afriyie, 2020). Nurses should avoid unnecessary processes to prevent misunderstanding and time wastage. Another significant approach that improves communication is to give everyone a voice. Communication in healthcare will be enhanced if leaders listen to all health experts and value their input.
Conclusion
Leadership, technology, and informatics are distinctive aspects of valuable nursing practice. Nursing, as well as other health organizations, are quickly adopting technology into regular activities. Because of the rapid changes in technology, nurses need to be adept in both informatics and leadership. Leadership is characterized by its fundamental influence and interpersonal abilities to motivate people to achieve a goal. The advancement of technology has improved data collecting, analysis, and utilization. If leaders guarantee that all healthcare providers have a say and are valued, nursing communication will improve.
References
Afriyie, D. (2020). Effective communication between nurses and patients: An evolutionary concept analysis. British Journal of Community Nursing, 25(9), 438-445. Web.
Collins, S., Yen, P. Y., Phillips, A., & Kennedy, M. K. (2017). Nursing informatics competency assessment for the nurse leader: The Delphi study. JONA: The Journal of Nursing Administration, 47(4), 212-218. Web.
Giddens, J. (2018). Transformational leadership: What every nursing dean should know. Journal of Professional Nursing, 34(2), 117-121. Web.
Murray, M., Sundin, D., & Cope, V. (2018). The nexus of nursing leadership and a culture of safer patient care. Journal of clinical nursing, 27(6), 1287-1293. Web.