Interaction Between Nurse Informaticists and Other Specialists
Nature offers many examples of specialization and collaboration. Ant colonies and bee hives are but two examples of nature’s sophisticated organizations. Each thrives because their members specialize by tasks, divide labor, and collaborate to ensure food, safety, and general well-being of the colony or hive.
Of course, humans don’t fare too badly in this regard either. And healthcare is a great example. As specialists in the collection, access, and application of data, nurse informaticists collaborate with specialists on a regular basis to ensure that appropriate data is available to make decisions and take actions to ensure the general well-being of patients.
In this Discussion, you will reflect on your own observations of and/or experiences with informaticist collaboration. You will also propose strategies for how these collaborative experiences might be improved.
To Prepare:
Review the Resources and reflect on the evolution of nursing informatics from a science to a nursing specialty.
Consider your experiences with nurse Informaticists or technology specialists within your healthcare organization.
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Interaction between Nurse Informaticists and Other Specialists
Teamwork has become indispensable in the healthcare industry as different professionals collaboratively work together to influence healthcare delivery positively. In the wake of technology-driven innovations and use in the health industry, one professional that has become critical is nursing informatics. These are nurse professionals who work towards developing communication and information technologies in the healthcare sector (Mosier et al., 2019). The use of IT has become evident in today’s care delivery, where physicians utilize electronic health records and data transfer, among others, to perform their duties. In order to have a smooth adoption, use, and integration between IT and clinical work, nursing informatics has filled the gap. This paper discusses the interaction between nurse informaticists and other health industry specialists.
Healthcare organizations are expanding towards modern technologies and the latest IT applications; there has been a positive gain in improved reporting, messaging, increased mobility, remote accessibility of patient information, and patient portals. Nursing informatics professionals are becoming increasingly important as they optimize technology use and workflows. The informaticists ensure that patient data, correlations, and trends effectively support clinical decision-making (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2017). Additionally, informaticists embrace optimized care, patient safety, and support for clinical nurses. They ensure professionals in healthcare organizations are trained on available technological resources. This, in turn, means that informaticits cannot work on their own but must collaboratively work with other professionals to positively influence healthcare delivery.
Nurse informaticists engage in data, access, and application of data. In turn, they must actively collaborate with other specialists within the healthcare setting to ensure the appropriate is availed to the needed professionals such as nurses, insurance agencies, and physicians to make the decisions that promote the overall wellbeing of the patient and care delivery process. Today healthcare organization performance has been determined by the ability of the multidisciplinary to perform towards the set goals and objectives effectively (Mosier et al., 2019). As part of such a team, nurse informaticists provide critical information about new workflows, play a central role in guiding new technology adoption and implementation, and assess data quality, giving their team members an optimal chance to best care delivery.
As IT has become integral in the healthcare industry today, care facilities or organizations have been left with no other option but to develop a culture of inter-professional collaboration to positively influence care delivery, experience, and safety for the patients. McGonigle & Mastrian (2017) regarded inter-professional collaboration as a significant factor in a better positive workplace environment and successful teamwork in care delivery. Different ways have been devised to foster collaborative experiences to care delivery. One approach is to remove barriers in the organizational culture. Healthcare organizations are greatly influenced by their past ways of doing things. Through the leaders, organizations should promote a collaborative culture by encouraging interdepartmental meetings, transparency and a teamwork approach to work. Additionally, the organization should provide a platform for social interaction among the different professionals and integrate teamwork in its day-to-day operations and tasks. Other ways to foster collaborative spirit are by sharing knowledge and resources, promoting open communication, rewarding and recognizing teams that perform excellently, and advocating team-building activities for the workers in the facility.
Working in a healthcare organization has exposed me to working with different professionals, including physicians, nurses, and pediatricians. In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic globally, the nurse informatics in the organization has had a busy time impellent remote communication tools to ensure patients remain in touch with the physicians while remotely booking appointments. Additionally, I have worked with informaticists’ specialist to prepare and send patient digital health records to different departments and other healthcare facilities. As healthcare technology becomes modernized, specialized, interconnected, and advanced faster than ever, all professionals working in the healthcare industry need an understanding of informatics. However, the roles of nurse informaticists remain integral in the success of IT adoption and use in positively influencing healthcare delivery and patient experience.
References
McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. G. (2017). Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge (4th Ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Mosier, S., Roberts, W. D., & Englebright, J. (2019). A system-level method for developing nursing informatics and solutions: The role of executive leadership. The Journal of Nursing Administration, 49(11), 543-548. 10.1097/NNA.0000000000000815