Nursing Informatics Competencies: Benefits of EHR Systems
This paper examines the growing importance of nursing informatics competencies in modern healthcare. It outlines how the integration of nursing science with computer and information science — as promoted by the TIGER Initiative — equips nurses to use electronic health record systems (EHRS) more effectively. The paper discusses how data collection, storage, and dissemination through EHRS improve patient safety, care quality, and operational efficiency. It also addresses federal mandates and HIMSS goals driving full EHRS implementation, and argues that informatics literacy is rapidly becoming a core professional competency that benefits both nurses and their patients.
- Introduction: Nursing informatics integrates technology with compassionate care
- Technological Improvements in Nursing: EHRS transforms data collection, storage, and privacy
- Who Benefits From Nursing Informatics?: Patients, nurses, and organizations gain from EHRS adoption
- Conclusion: Informatics literacy is now a core nursing requirement
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What makes this paper effective
- Grounds its argument in real policy mandates — federal EHRS implementation deadlines and HIMSS quality goals — lending institutional credibility to its claims.
- Balances multiple stakeholder perspectives by addressing benefits for nurses, healthcare organizations, and patients in separate, clearly differentiated paragraphs.
- Uses a concise, accessible tone appropriate for a professional nursing audience, avoiding unnecessary jargon while still referencing discipline-specific frameworks.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates policy-anchored argumentation: rather than relying solely on theoretical claims, it cites specific institutional targets (the 2014 EHRS mandate, the 75% HIMSS goal) to support the practical urgency of its thesis. This technique strengthens persuasive writing in professional and applied fields by showing that the argument is backed by real-world accountability structures, not just scholarly opinion.
Structure breakdown
The paper follows a classic four-section structure: an introduction establishing the problem and thesis, a technology-focused body section explaining what EHRS systems do, a stakeholder-benefits section addressing organizations and patients, and a forward-looking conclusion reinforcing the thesis. Each section builds logically on the previous one, moving from context → mechanism → benefit → imperative.
Introduction
In an increasingly digital world driven by new and emerging technology, nurses are still expected to deliver quality, compassionate care to the best of their ability. While new technology may often seem overwhelming at first, it can prove very beneficial to the nurses who are exposed to it. In order to help more nurses become comfortable with utilizing technology to its fullest potential, the field of nursing informatics has evolved to integrate nursing science with computer and information science (The TIGER Initiative, p. 3). Nurses who become certified in nursing informatics are valuable to their organizations by increasing accuracy in documentation and improving workflow (The TIGER Initiative, p. 3). Eventually, such measures will be considered commonplace in the nursing profession.
Technological Improvements in Nursing
Most of the new technology enhancing the nursing profession pertains to information handling. This includes technology to collect data, analyze that data, and then present it as usable information or knowledge (Gugerty & Delaney, 2009, p. 7). The data collected can be something as simple as taking a blood pressure reading, but more commonly refers to the data collected within the electronic health record system (EHRS) (Gugerty & Delaney, 2009, p. 7). The EHRS has not changed the kind of data collected, only the way it is collected, stored, and utilized. Nurses remain responsible for exercising caution regarding patient privacy, as they always have been, but they may need to learn new methods of managing that privacy when using EHRS. Furthermore, such systems have the ability to be linked into other systems across different healthcare networks, providing more information than was ever previously available.
Conclusion
Nursing informatics is a growing field that will soon become standard practice for all nursing professionals. The benefits of such systems mean that healthcare providers will be unable to ignore them, and the implementation push made by both the government and insurers ensures that EHRS will become standard throughout the healthcare system. Nurses will need to demonstrate competence with these technologies to show that they are capable of providing care in the new reality of a healthcare environment guided by information technology.
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