Nursing informatics is the newly emerging aspect of the healthcare structure that implements the technologies to existing science in order to increase the efficiency of decision making and treatment providing. It aims to help manage, define, and communicate medical professionals’ data, which allows us to build relevant strategies for the future (Al-Hawamdih & Ahmad, 2018). There are several aspects of nursing informatics to consider, as well as understand its effect on leadership in medicine, especially nursing. This essay will examine the leadership peculiarities, provide the relevant description of nursing informatics, and assess its impact on the medical administration and management.
Summary of the Previous Papers
Successful leadership consists of multiple aspects to conceive and qualification and skills to acquire. First, time management is intricately linked to the achievement of appropriate administration. The professionals can use strategies such as a mini keyboard for efficient performance. Second, the introvert type of people can be good leaders due to their personality traits. The development of their management skills is a crucial component for consideration. Third, there are at least four conflict management theories, and the relevant abilities of the professionals in leadership positions are needed. They should understand the points where the power is applied, the instances when the conflict can be resolved without intervention, and the cases that need fundamental changes for the staff. Finally, emotional intelligence can significantly assist in the implementation of the previously mentioned factors. As a result, being a successful leader is a complicated mission that needs a comprehensive approach and various skills and qualifications.
Role of Nursing Informatics
The medical records were kept in paper form for long, and there are some concerns that patient care cannot be comprehensive enough to ensure a high quality of treatment. Nursing scientists believed that informatics could change the practice in innumerable ways before the emergence of highly efficient technologies (Al-Hawamdih & Ahmad, 2018). Implementation of the nursing informatics has contributed to building suitable health statistics, which, in turn, helps to understand the trends in medicine (Haupelshofer et al., 2020). This opportunity is especially helpful when analyzing the contagious diseases and tracing the cases of illnesses. Moreover, systematizing the available data could help the doctors to recognize the symptoms to the diagnosis faster as the medical records would be more convenient for quick research (Al-Hawamdih & Ahmad, 2018). The professionals input the information more promptly, which helps to keep the files up-to-date and reliable in emergency cases.
In such a case, the nurses and doctors can create appropriate strategies according to the situations. Particularly, there is an excellent opportunity to assess the efficiency of new treatment strategies in short periods, which helps to decide on the optimal choices of general guidelines more promptly (Hussey & Kennedy, 2016). Information availability and its comprehensiveness are among the most important reasons for the implementation of informatics in healthcare.
Furthermore, the statistical database which nursing informatics can provide the opportunity to enlarge the reliability of evidence-based practices and increase the rate of a successful evaluation of such systems. The data obtained with the consent of thousands of patients can identify the best practices for the society. Together with that the information also helps to assess the effects of the environment, genetics, nationality, and food preferences and other factors (Al-Hawamdih & Ahmad, 2018). Together with significantly improving the available knowledge in this sphere, it can help to refute the conspiratory theories and back up the scientists’ research results and conclusions (Hussey & Kennedy, 2016). Nursing informatics is a novel tool for investigations as well as data gathering.
In addition to that, the nursing informatics also ensures the security of the privacy of the patients. In the same way that the nurses and other professionals easily access the necessary information about the patients, other people should not meddle in their personal deals (Hussey & Kennedy, 2016). The moral side of nursing informatics and bioethics provides the relevant assessment of the practices to ensure the clients’ security (Haupelshofer et al., 2020). The relevant professionals should ensure the protection of the hospital databases (Al-Hawamdih & Ahmad, 2018). As a result, the nursing informatics protects the mental well-being of the patients together with checking on their physical feelings (Hussey & Kennedy, 2016). The protection of the patient information must be braced while accomplishing the purpose of modifying data into valuable insight.
Apart from that, the nursing informatics has the evident advantage of mobility, helping the enhancement of the available techniques. The fact that patient information can be accessed anywhere and anytime provides flexibility for medical professionals (Al-Hawamdih & Ahmad, 2018). Considering the fields of acute and emergency medicine, where the quickness of new information can help turn the situation into another development scenario, this peculiarity of the techniques is helpful (Hussey & Kennedy, 2016). Moreover, nursing informatics can reduce the number of human mistakes in medicine (Haupelshofer et al., 2020). It is a lot more straightforward to insert the data into the base without having to write and send the papers to the appropriate officials. The flexibility and swiftness of technologies in medicine and nursing are a great advantage for the practitioners.
In addition to the mentioned advantage, medical professionals also have the opportunity to check on their patients’ health when they are away from the hospital conditions. This fact can be necessary when seeking a differential diagnosis since, in most of such cases, nurses and doctors have to treat the symptoms rather than the illness itself (Haupelshofer et al., 2020). Consequently, there is an elevated need to acquire new information or report the conditions and feelings right after the symptoms appear (Al-Hawamdih & Ahmad, 2018). Nurse-patient communication has become more interactive and real-time because of nursing informatics.
Nursing Informatics and Leadership
As it was noted before, the nursing informatics can be the source of reliable statistics and provide an understanding of the correlation of some factors in medicine. The leaders in medicine can implement this information for making important decisions immediately (Collins et al., 2016). For example, if the system shows that there is an unusually high number of patients with viral disease, they can suspect epidemics, and prevent the pathogen from spreading. It is evident that in such dangerous cases, the rate of identification and the adoption of necessary measures can be crucial for achieving promising results. Consequently, statistics is an efficient tool for prevention of the failure of the healthcare system.
One of the urgent problems today is the lack of professionals or inadequate usage of human resources. The health government benefited from gaining an understanding of the population and its medical needs (Yen et al., 2017). The statistics and technology itself would not be as helpful without the health managers’ crucial abilities to analyze and make relevant conclusions (Al-Hawamdih & Ahmad, 2018). The clinicians assess the ages, sizes, and receptivity of the target population, which helps them manage resources, prepare for the future viral or bacterial outbreaks and prevent collapses of the system. As a result, healthcare management is improved by using such tools and their correlations.
On the other hand, the vast availability of the information and data obtained using the technologies hinders the trusting relationships of the clinicians and patients. Lately, there are a growing number of instances when the subjects use the Internet information for self-treatment, which can have detrimental consequences due to unknown diagnosis (Haupelshofer et al., 2020). Moreover, conspiracy theories prevent people from vaccination and inhibit the formation of collective immunity. The distrust of the patients toward the practitioners in favor of alternative medicine supporters is one of the main problems of the nursing informatics and transparency.
Another danger ahead of the medical professionals concerning nursing informatics is the overwhelming divergence of the information. There could become too much information to consider for health management, which would create conflicts (Strudwick et al., 2019). For instance, the correlations counted by gathering statistics could imply the necessity of specific restrictive measures for the population. At the same time, the age and physical peculiarities of the particular groups increase the risk of terminal illnesses development. The techniques from other aspects could address such questions efficiently in case there were similar situations (Strudwick et al., 2019). The data science in the nursing systems is emerging science, which should be the required skill or qualification for the healthcare professionals in leading positions.
Besides, nursing informatics achievements could hinder the leaders who particularly consider the patients on a case-by-case basis. Although there is undoubted reliability for the statistics and suggestions made from the results of technologies, the nursing leaders and professionals should sustain the valued elements of their professions (Collins et al., 2017). The medical workers should understand the importance of the independent decisions on the basis of the statistics but not solely organized on them (Yen et al., 2017). There could arise some conflicts because of the discrepancy in the prioritization of the medical factors. As a result, the leaders’ decisions would be questioned, which could appear in the actions directed against each other in the worst cases. To solve such issues, the leaders should pay their utmost attention to successful communication principles, which can facilitate the understanding of others (Strudwick et al., 2019). Moreover, it can stimulate healthy discussions to improve health care delivery and management.
To conclude, nursing informatics is the field that integrates healthcare, data science, computer science to manage and communicate the significant amount of available information and technological advances. It is evident that there are multiple variables for healthcare managers to consider. As a matter of fact, the organization of the data and implementation of the relevant conclusions can help the leaders to recognize numerous factors at a time and support their decisions and judgments. There are multiple advantages as well as limitations of nursing informatics to the leadership. It can help to enhance the authority of the doctors as well as administrators by providing relevant figures and comprehensive analysis made with technologies’ assistance. However, some risks significantly hinder the influence of health management and can be an obstacle to improvement. In case of adequate communication, those problems can be eliminated in accordance with the principles of the nursing profession.
References
Al-Hawamdih, S., & Ahmad, M. M. (2018). Examining the relationship between nursing informatics competency and the quality of information processing. CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing, 36(3), 154-159.
Collins, S., Yen, P., Phillips, A., & Kennedy, M. (2017). Nursing informatics competency assessment for the nurse leader: The Delphi study. The Journal of Nursing Administration, 47(4), 212-218.
Haupeltshofer, A., Egerer, V., & Seeling, S. (2020). Promoting health literacy: What potential does nursing informatics offer to support older adults in the use of technology? A scoping review. Health Informatics Journal, 1-15.
Hussey, P. A., & Kennedy, M. A. (2016). Instantiating informatics in nursing practice for integrated patient centred holistic models of care: A discussion paper. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 72(5), 1030-1041. Web.
Strudwick, G., Nagle, L., Kassam, I., Pahwa, M., & Sequeira, L. (2019). Informatics competencies for nurse leaders: A scoping review. The Journal of Nursing Administration, 49(6), 323-330.
Yen, P., Phillips, A., Kennedy, M. K., & Collins, S. (2017). Nursing informatics competency assessment for the nurse leader: Instrument refinement, validation, and psychometric analysis. The Journal of Nursing Administration, 47(5), 271-277.