Impact of Full Nurse Engagement in Health Care Technology

Impact of Full Nurse Engagement in Health Care Technology

Nurses should be fully engaged in health care technology utilization to improve patient outcomes. Farokhzadian et al. (2020) demonstrated health care technology as the spine of efficient, high-quality, and cost-effective care. Such care is achieved through improved communication, accuracy, and timeliness. Improving these key aspects ensures high patient satisfaction since it depends on how and when care is delivered. Sharing and using protected health information is a major concern that nursing informatics has addressed. According to Keshta and Odeh (2021), integrating safeguards to secure private information has enabled health care facilities to align care with security, privacy, and confidentiality principles. The nurse informaticist and the interdisciplinary team can adopt similar technical and administrative safeguards to manage patients’ protected health information effectively. Reliable security measures include restricted access, educating users, and data encryption (Basil et al., 2022; Keshta & Odeh, 2021). Among others, these interventions ensure private data is secure and inaccessible to unauthorized users.

Better workflows and cost-effective care are realized with full nurse engagement in health care technology. When care providers use health technologies actively, information sharing, processing, and decision-making are quicker. Consequently, essential procedures are completed seamlessly while saving time. According to Devin et al. (2020), the accuracy associated with health care technologies helps nursing professionals to reduce medical errors and potential care delays. The use of mobile apps, patient portals, and other tools to facilitate remote patient monitoring enables care facilities to save health care costs. These benefits underline health care technology as a foundation of cost-effective care with a positive return on investment.

Opportunities and Challenges

Adding a nurse informaticist role in the organization will be associated with massive opportunities for nurses and the interdisciplinary team. Such opportunities include effective collaboration, safe and efficient use of technologies, and an expanded capacity for data analysis and research. The interdisciplinary team will also be in an advanced position to analyze patient care trends using data and health care technologies and intervene accordingly. Regarding challenges, the increased adoption of technologies in health care delivery is associated with more data security issues (Keshta & Odeh, 2021). Therefore, the organization will require a robust technological infrastructure to facilitate informatics adoption and sustainability. To realize the promise of technology, the interdisciplinary team can collaborate through tech-based communication and data sharing. Members can also embrace teamwork when performing critical roles such as medication confirmation to optimize safety.

Summary of Recommendations

When evaluating the feasibility of new positions, organizational leaders should be guided by the benefits associated with their creation. According to Garcia-Dia (2021), nursing informatics improves care experience by improving communication and safety and supporting communication between patients, families, and nursing professionals. As a result, the position of a nurse informaticist is crucial to optimize the use of information and communication technology. Research also links the nurse informaticist’s role with high patient satisfaction and safe use of health care technologies (Farokhzadian et al., 2020; Lin et al., 2020). Such benefits would also be realized with a similar role in this facility. Improved communication, virtual patient monitoring, and reducing medical errors through technologies, save health care costs. The implication is that cost-effective care would also be realized by creating a nurse informaticist role. These gains validate the position and why it should be a priority for leaders.

Conclusion

Health care delivery has evolved multi-dimensionally to ensure high-quality care and patient safety. Leaders responsible for organizational development should consider roles that improve an organization’s capacity to improve health outcomes. As described in this proposal, a nurse informaticist role is essential to support tech-based and data-driven health care in this organization. Communication will improve, patients will be served better, and teams will connect seamlessly as they share data among other roles.

References

Basil, N. N., Ambe, S., Ekhator, C., & Fonkem, E. (2022). Health records database and inherent security concerns: a review of the Literature. Cureus, 14(10), e30168. https://doi.org/10.7759