Nursing profession is a complex and important field of human care. In addition to the challenge of high workloads and long hours, nurses are also faced with the challenge of caring for persons who are often hostile or otherwise difficult to handle as a result of the conditions they suffer from. In such cases, nurses must provide care with professionalism and friendliness, regardless of their personal feelings. To be able to perform their work effectively over the long-term, it is vital for nurses to receive as much support as possible from their leaders and peers. In addition to leadership systems such as the transformational paradigm and the synergy model, there are also technical support systems that nurses can benefit most profoundly from.
The nurse's relationship to the information systems and technology department, for example, is of optimal importance. According to the Biohealthmatics.com Website (2010), this relationship is currently tragically underutilized despite its obvious benefits to the nurse and her workload.
Collectively, for example, a good IT implementation can improve the workload functionality at a hospital, where staffing levels and skill mix per shift can be determined easily by the shift modules. Managers then need to spend less time on designing and amending rosters, giving them the freedom to help nurses cope with the various duties that are assigned to them. At the same time, care planning and drug administration can also be improved, providing nurses with a more professional air, since they are not as stressed by the time taken to determine the various levels of care that need to be administered....
From the patient's viewpoint, this is important in terms of the perception of care being received. The improvement in nursing and time management created in this way can also lay a good platform for the transformational change to create a truly excellent paradigm of nursing.
According to Bigelow and Arndt (2005), transformational change involves the concept of "reengineering." Although this concept is generally applied to industries and businesses, it is as applicable to hospitals as elsewhere, and perhaps even more so, since hospitals are concerned with human well-being. The above-mentioned relationship of the nurse with the IS department is an example of the potential outcome of transformational change. Hospitals are, for example, in dire need of better and more effective management. The implementation of IS systems to better manage the general processes of nursing will not only improve the existing process, but also create a platform for further change.
Further change is also a fundamental concept in transformational change. Indeed, the rapid development of technology and the spread of information have become so profoundly overwhelming that a good relationship with IT has become almost mandatory in all professions. This should be particularly so in nursing. Nursing managers should therefore make the effort to create a platform for change that is not only immediate, but also continuous and voluntary. If the whole process of health care can be improved in this way, hospitals in general would be able to provide better service to their clients.
Because of the nature and basis of health care and…
