Nursing Informatics Is Important to the Health

Nursing

Informatics is important to the health care system, especially when it comes to creating and maintaining a culture of safety. Medication errors, and other treatment errors, can be eliminated with the use of informatics systems. With informatics, health care workers can rely on information to implement as evidence-based practice. Therefore, nurses should be vocal advocates for informatics in their organizations. Informatics are enacted in my health care organization haphazardly and tentatively. For many years, we have maintained digital databases of patient information. The problem is that nurses are confined to the computer systems at nursing stations to access information. We do not yet have access to portable handheld devices linked up to patient medical records. Most importantly, our databases are not truly electronic medical records. They list some patient history with medication information, but the information cannot be shared with all members of the health care team easily or with pharmacists. A head nurse in our institution has recently rallied for the implementation of robust electronic medical health records systems, in accordance with the Affordable Health Care Act. Within five years, our institution should have made the transition.

Informatics can help create and promote a culture of safety because of the value o electronic medical records (Snyder, et al., 2011). Another reason why informatics help create a culture of safety is by increasing access to research databases that can be used to promote evidence-based practice. As Titler (n.d.) points out, "Evidence-based health care practices are available for a number of conditions…However, these practices are not always implemented in care delivery, and variation in practices abound." The lack of standardized evidence-based care in our institutions is hurting patients. One nurse will recommend one treatment intervention or method, and the next time the patient is admitted to hospital and sees a different nurse, a new treatment intervention will be recommended. Patients are given conflicting information, and are often confused about best practices.

Thus, evidence-based practice is not used as much as it should be. There are some lists of established procedures that are common, such as measuring patient blood pressure. However, there is a range of disorders and complications for which there are no established guidelines yet. A culture of safety is not being supported well enough in American healthcare organizations including my own.