As a registered nurse at my hospital, main interaction between RNs and nurse informaticists is communicating technology issues related to patient care and sharing recommendations pertaining to Epic, our electronic health record (EHR) system. When we have suggestions or ideas as to how to enhance our EHR process we voice our concerns to our leadership who then coordinate these recommendations through our IT Department. Our hospital informaticists are also involved in this process. If an upgrade does occur to Epic, we are communicated through pop up notifications after logging into Epic and also by an email. For instance, we recently received an email with “tip sheets” about an Epic upgrade going into effect on September 10, 2021. Nurse informaticists provide training sessions for Epic superusers via Zoom. Subsequently, Epic superusers assist the staff in learning upgrades on Epic and ensuring we understand changes. They also address questions and issues we may have with Epic.
Our IT Department also alert us to planned outages so that we may plan contingencies for the outage time. These contingencies may include paper charting that is put into Epic when the outage is complete. Not all outages, however, are planned and the IT Department works to fix problems to bring our systems back up as quickly as possible.
How to Improve Interactions
Although we are aware of the nursing informaticists and know of their roles and contributions to the hospital EHR process, we have little interaction with them. We know they exist but we hardly know who they are within our organization. I think our hospital can improve the interaction between the bedside RNs who work directly with patients and the informaticists who work to make our jobs more effective and efficient. Part of that interaction can be through education and trainings on many of the other informatics tools available.
One study revealed that most nurse leaders acquired their health information technology (HIT) knowledge through on-the-job (OJT) training. OJT is always critical but we should do more. Nursing informatics and HIT knowledge should be a core competency of professional practice. Nurse leaders should identify areas of nursing informatics that are important in their practice. For example, I will need to identify what areas of informatics will be most valuable to myself as a PMHNP. This can bring greater specificity about domains needed for development. The competencies identified can be applied to residency programs, continuing education programs, and curriculum development. The level of detail within each competency can close education and skill gaps, optimize HIT to improve patient outcomes, enhance the patient’s experience, and improve nursing workflow (Collins et al., 2017). We should work closely with informaticists to identify and develop the necessary informatics skills related to our competency for greater patient outcomes.
Quality Work
Unlimited Revisions
Affordable Pricing
24/7 Support
Fast Delivery