Tuesday, 8 May 2012
CURRENT TRENDS IN NURSING INFORMATICS

How Technology Helps Nurses Respond to Patients Faster

Posted on Sunday, December 27, 2009
Nursing is a fast-paced and rapidly changing profession, especially when it comes to patient response and interaction.  As technology continues to advance within the medical field, it is helping nurses to more effectively aid and assist their patients. 
For instance, nurses are replacing their beepers and pagers with smartphones and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs).  Smartphones and PDAs offer advanced functionality with e-mail, text messaging, Web, capabilities, and more. They also allow for instant communication with other nurses, access to a calendar or day planner, and the ability to confer with doctors and other colleagues as necessary.

Some smartphones even have direct connect or walkie-talkie capabilities, allowing nurses to be alerted automatically and respond quickly when a patient pushes a call button.

In fact, the University of Minnesota Medical Center has given each of its 225 nurses a wireless Internet handset. These smartphones provide patients, doctors, and other nurses with direct access to the nurses who carry them. When a patient hits the Call button from a hospital bed, it speed dials up to three nurses’ smartphones, cutting the response time from up to 10 minutes to just seconds. [1]
This is just one of the ways that today’s tech-savvy nurses are using the latest technology to provide safer, more effective, and more efficient care for their patients.   Below are some other examples of how technology is helping nurses optimize the level of care they are able to provide their patients:

·        Some medical schools now require all first-term students to have PDAs, which are armed with up to six reference books. [2]
·        More hospitals are asking their nurses to wear Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags during their shifts. This helps the nurses station track who is on the floor with which patient. It can also help to track wheelchairs, EKG machines, and other portable medical equipment. [3]
Technology breakthroughs, led by the early adoption of smartphones, PDAs, and RFID tracking devices, are taking nursing to new levels of productivity. Everyone from nurse supervisors to hospital administrators are seeing the reduction in response times by providing nurses with faster, more effective, and more efficient service to their patients’ bedsides.

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Professional Organizations Supporting Nursing Informatics
CNIA

•The Canadian Nursing Informatics Association (CNIA) exists to help nurses across Canada to learn, share, research, and create informatics-related projects and experiences that can help to boost the competencies, theory, and practice of informatics on a national level.

•MISSION
–To be the voice for Nursing Informatics in Canada. The CNIA is the culmination of efforts to catalyze the emergence of a new national association of nurse informaticians.

•GOALS
–To provide nursing leadership for the development of Nursing/Health informatics in Canada.
–To establish national networking opportunities for nurse informaticians.
–To facilitate informatics educational opportunities for all nurses in Canada.
–To engage in international nursing informatics initiatives.
–To act as a nursing advisory group in matters of nursing and health informatics.
–To expand awareness of Nursing Informatics to all nurses and the healthcare community.
  
EUROPEAN UNION

•All Europeans want the best healthcare for themselves and their families. Yet Europe is ageing, putting immense pressure on healthcare systems which already account for around 9% of EU GDP.
•The health sector is, however, very information intensive, so advanced ICTs can make healthcare systems morecost-effective, allowing more funds to be spent on healthcare, and less on administering it. "e-Health" is therefore emerging as an important new global industry - an opportunity Europe's healthcare and ICT industries must not miss.
ACENDIO.NET 
•The Association for Common European Nursing Diagnoses, Interventions and Outcomes is a membership organization established in 1995 to promote the development of nursing’s professional language and provide a network across Europe for nurses interested in the development of a common language to describe the practice of nursing.
ICN 
•The International Council of Nurses (ICN) is a federation of more than 130 national nurses associations (NNAs), representing the more than 13 million nurses worldwide.  Founded in 1899, ICN is the world’s first and widest reaching international organization for health professionals.  Operated by nurses and leading nurses internationally, ICN works to ensure quality nursing care for all, sound health policies globally, the advancement of nursing knowledge, and the presence worldwide of a respected nursing profession and a competent and satisfied nursing workforce.
INI2006.ORG 
•The Information Networking Institute (INI) offers professional graduate degree programs in Information Networking, Information Security, Mobility and Software Management that represent an exceptional fusion of technologies, economics and policies of secure communication networks and systems.
 
 
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ANA RECOGNIZED TERMINOLOGIES
NANDA
Defining the Knowledge of Nursing

Words are powerful. They allow us to communicate ideas and experience to others so they may share our understanding.Nursing diagnoses communicate the professional judgments that nurses make every day to our patients, colleagues, members of other disciplines and the public. 

Nursing diagnoses define what we know - they are our words. 


•NURSING DIAGNOSES  
–Nursing Diagnosis
Nursing diagnosis is a clinical judgment about actual or potential individual, family, or community experiences/responses to health problems/life processes. A nursing diagnosis provides the basis for selection of nursing interventions to achieve outcomes for which the nurse has accountability. 
–Actual Nursing Diagnosis
A clinical judgment about human experience/responses to health conditions/life processes that exist in an individual, family, or community.
–Health-Promotion Nursing Diagnosis
A clinical judgment about a person’s, family’s or community’s motivation and desire to increase wellbeing and actualize human health potential as expressed in the readiness to enhance specific health behaviors, and can be used in any health state. 
–Risk Nursing Diagnosis
Describes human responses to health conditions / life processes that may develop in a vulnerable individual / family / community. It is supported by risk factors that contribute to increased vulnerability. 
–Syndrome
A clinical judgment describing a specific cluster of nursing diagnoses that occur together, and are best addressed together and through similar interventions. 
•COMPONENTS OF A DIAGNOSIS 
–Label
Provides a name for a diagnosis. It is a concise term or phrase that represents a pattern of related cues. It may include modifiers.
–Definition
Provides a clear, precise description; delineates its meaning and helps differentiate it from similar diagnoses. 

 
NIC


•CNC - Overview: Nursing Interventions Classification (NIC)
–OVERVIEW OF NIC
  The Nursing Interventions Classification (NIC) is a comprehensive, research-based, standardized classification of interventions that nurses perform. It is useful for clinical documentation, communication of care across settings, integration of data across systems and settings, effectiveness research, productivity measurement, competency evaluation, reimbursement, and curricular design.
CCC

The Clinical Care Classification (CCC) System is a standardized, coded nursing terminology that identifies the discrete elements of nursing practice. CCC provides a unique framework and coding structure for capturing the essence of patient care in all health care settings. 

OMAHA SYSTEM

•The Omaha System is a research-based, comprehensive practice and documentation standardized taxonomy or classification designed to document client care from admission to discharge. The hierarchy and terms of the Omaha System are summarized in the Overview, and include an assessment component (Problem Classification Scheme), an intervention component (Intervention Scheme), and an outcomes component (Problem Rating Scale for Outcomes).
 PERIOPERATIVE NURSING DATASET
•Periop 101 is a program used by educators to train new perioperative nurses and consists of 25 online learning modules, delivered through AORN's e-learning platform. Each learning module includes required reading and suggested videos from AORN's Perioperative Nursing Video Library. Periop 101 is designed as a blended program to be given in conjunction with a clinical preceptorship.
•The Periop 101 Demo allows you to preview the course and the learning components included in the course.
SNOMED CT
•SNOMED Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT) is the most comprehensive, multilingual clinical healthcare terminology in the world. 
•SNOMED CT contributes to the improvement of patient care by underpinning the development of Electronic Health Records that record clinical information in ways that enable meaning-based retrieval. This provides effective access to information required for decision support and consistent reporting and analysis. Patients benefit from the use of SNOMED CT because it improves the recording of EHR information and facilitates better communication, leading to improvements in the quality of care.
 
ICN
The International Council of Nurses (ICN) is a federation of more than 130 national nurses associations (NNAs), representing the more than 13 million nurses worldwide.  Founded in 1899, ICN is the world’s first and widest reaching international organization for health professionals.  Operated by nurses and leading nurses internationally, ICN works to ensure quality nursing care for all, sound health policies globally, the advancement of nursing knowledge, and the presence worldwide of a respected nursing profession and a competent and satisfied nursing workforce.
ABC CODES
•ABC codes and terminology are maintained and developed annually as individuals and health industry organizations submit code requests that reflect current practices in integrative healthcare. ABC Coding Solutions encourages the public to request and/or suggest additions, deletions, or changes to ABC codes and terminology. 
–New Code and Terminology Request
•ABC Coding Solutions works closely with individuals and entities requesting codes and/or terminology to assure that the information required for a new code is complete. This information is then verified through our Research Department.  Once all relevant information has been collected, a draft version of the proposed ABC Terminology (code description and expanded definition) is developed in accordance with the ABC Terminology lexicon and style sheet. This draft terminology is presented to the requesting party and, once approved, remitted to subject matter experts (SMEs) for review.
 
 LOINC

•A universal code system for identifying laboratory and clinical observations.
•From serum levels of hepatitis B surface antigen to diastolic blood pressure, LOINC has standardized terms for all kinds of observations and measurements that enable exchange and aggregation of electronic health data from many independent systems.

 
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Friday, 4 May 2012
Nursing Informatics in New Zealand (Pacific Rim)
Harnessing technology to benefit nursing: as technology and health informatics become an increasingly significant part of nursing practice, it is vital nurses are able to articulate their technological and professional needs for the benefit of patients 
Full Text: 
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Technology is now an inseparable part of good nursing practice and nurses themselves have become leaders in the development of health informatics in New Zealand. Yet the term "nursing informatics" is comparatively new, having first being used here in the early 1990s.
Initially the use of computer technology in health care was limited. However, today all nurses would be familiar with a range of digital data collection devices--from electronic blood pressure machines, tympanic thermometers and blood sugar level equipment--and information technology (IT), eg electronic laboratory results, patient records and email communication, in both their personal and professional lives.
The increase in the use of information and computer technology in health care has led to health professionals, the government, through the Ministry of Health and New Zealand technology companies, to work together to consider how best to harness the opportunities technology-supported health care can provide. The umbrella group uniting those interested in this area is Health Informatics New Zealand (HINZ). Nurses are an active group within this organisation.
All of us are aware of the increasing place of technology in our lives, including our personal lives--such as audiovisual appliances and home computers. The common experiences of using automatic teller machines, internet banking and household devices such as video and microwave ovens are further examples.
Technology is also part of our professional lives, whether we work in clinical, management, administration, education or research. Nursing practice is seen as information-intensive, with one study estimating nurses spend nearly half their time documenting patient information. (1) Therefore, technology that reduces the time and effort in routine aspects of care delivery and documentation could lead to more quality time caring for our patients.
Technology can provide further gains beyond computerised documentation, including co-ordination of care, communication and medication management. There are many advantages for the profession of increasing the use of technology because of the storage, processing, retrieval, display, processing, analysis and communication capabilities of the computer. (2) For nursing to take advantage of the potential benefits of technology, it is essential nurses articulate what the profession needs and how technology can support nursing practice.
What is nursing informatics?
The International Medical Informatics Association special interest group in nursing informatics' (IMIA-NI) definition of nursing informatics was ratified by the 2009 general assembly as: "Nursing informatics, science and practice integrate nursing, its information and knowledge and their management with information and communication technologies to promote the health of people, families and communities world wide." (3)
A history of nursing informatics in New Zealand states: "Nursing and the use of information to improve patient care have gone hand-in-hand since at least the time of Florence Nightingale." (4) In fact, Florence Nightingale is often attributed as being the first nurse informatician, as she used data she collected during the Crimean War to change the way she cared for her patients. (5) The challenge for nurses is to consider how we can also use data to inform and improve our nursing care.
In the early 1990s, computers were becoming more common, though how the technology could be used in health care, and more specifically to support nursing practice, was less understood. In 1991, following a conference entitled Nursing informatics in New Zealand: An impetus for learning, organising committee chair Jan Hausman sought a mandate to form a group to continue sharing knowledge and ideas engendered by the conference.
The first meeting to set up a national nursing informatics group was held six weeks later. The objective for the fledgling group was: "to foster throughout New Zealand the development of knowledge and utilisation of information systems within all areas of nursing practice", and the name Nursing Informatics New Zealand (NINZ) was adopted. (4) The new millennium saw NINZ merge with the New Zealand Health Informatics Foundation (NZHIF) to form a new incorporated society, Health Informatics New Zealand (HINZ).
Role of HINZ
HINZ is a national, not-for-profit organisation. Its focus is to facilitate improvements in business processes and patient care in the health sector through the application of appropriate information technologies. (6) HINZ helps improve the effectiveness of health informatics business and acts as a single portal for the collection and dissemination of information about the health informatics industry. Membership is open to anyone with an interest in health and informatics who wants to be part of an organisation that can provide relevant, up-to-date information about health informatics, through information sharing, seminars and annual conferences.
HINZ has established working groups to mirror some of those within the IMIA-NI. The HINZ nursing informatics working group is the most active of HINZ groups.
The Ministry of Health is interested in information collection and hosts 17 national collections and systems. New Zealand is fortunate to have a National Health Index (NHI) database where each person has a unique health care identifier which follows the individual through each health care event in his/her life, allowing easier tracking of information through health care episodes. All information collection, storage, access and retrieval is governed by the Privacy Act (1993) and the Health Information Code (1994) and subsequent amendments.(7) The overall vision for information management is set out in this strategy. (8) Subsequent to a Ministerial review in 2009, changes to the health sector have been instigated, with the overall objective of "better, sooner, more convenient health services'; A major change has been the establishment of the National Health Board (NHB) and the formation of a sub-committee, the Information Technology Health Board. A number of informatics-related recommendations have been made, including strengthening health IT and prioritising new technologies and medical devices. The IT Health Board is seen as a health sector leadership group to support the delivery of high quality health care by providing strategic leadership on health information investments and solutions across the health and disability sector, and ensuring health sector policy is supported by appropriate health information and IT solutions.
Health technology plan
In July this year, the IT Health Board published a national health information technology plan. This aims to "drive a culture of innovation, partnership and respect to support health sector leaders to make appropriate health information technology investments in the context of the whole sector" (9) and to work towards the eHealth Vision. This vision has a clear aim: "To achieve high quality health care and improve patient safety, by 2014 New Zealanders will have a core set of personal health information available electronically to them and their treatment providers, regardless of the setting as they access health services". (9)
Pressures ahead
New Zealand currently faces a number of pressures, including:
* health inequalities and the need to address Maori health disparities because of the over representation of Maori in morbidity and mortality data; (10,11,12,13)
* a growing older population, and more people with long-term and complex health conditions. (14)
* a more informed consumer. With our history of free health services, there is an expectation that health care will continue to be freely available and that evidence-based best practice will determine the treatments, with no regard to cost.
* workforce issues, including an ageing workforce. The nursing workforce is the single largest health professional group, and is recognised as having enormous potential to advance health and disability outcomes. (15)
These pressures can only be expected to intensify in the next decade. We need to target and prioritise where health IT investments are made. Judicious use of technology could be the key to the long-term sustainability of a free health care service.

Conclusion
Nurses deserve to have quality information at their fingertips, when and where required, to ensure they can deliver the best care possible to individuals, communities and populations. Nurses cannot expect to practise effectively without reliable information delivered at the right place, in a timely fashion. Work is underway to achieve this, with the plans focusing on information exchange to support the continuum of care. Nurses need to be actively involved in this, so the right information and knowledge required to support care is targeted.
HINZ held its annual conference in Wellington early this month. For further information about HINZ, see the website www.hinz.org.nz. To find out more or keep in contact with other nurses about nursing informatics, contact chair of the nursing informatics working group at HINZ, Michelle Honey. Phone 09 9237308 or email: m.honey@auckland.ac.nz.
References
(1) Bowies, K. H. (1997) The barriers and benefits of nursing information systems. Computers in Nursing; 15: 4, 191- 196.
(2) Thede, L. Q. (1999) Computers in nursing: Bridges to the future. Philadelphia: Lippincott.
(3) IMIA-NI. (2010) IMIA NI--The Nursing Informatics Special Interest Group. http://www.imiani.org/. Retrieved 25/10/10.
(4) Appleton, M., Carr, R. & Hausman, J. (2000) NINZ: the first 10 years. Auckland, New Zealand: Nursing Informatics New Zealand Inc.
(5) Kenney, J. A. & Androwich, I. (2009) Nursing informatics roles, competencies and skills. In D. McGonigle & K. Mastrian (Eds), Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge (pp107-131). Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers.
(6) Health Informatics New Zealand. (2010) About Health Informatics New Zealand. http://www.hinz.org.nz/page/abouthinz/about-hinz. Retrieved 09/06/10.
(7) Ministry of Health. (2000) The New Zealand Health Strategy. Wellington, New Zealand: Ministry of Health.
(8) Health Information Strategy Steering Committee. (2005) Health Information Strategy for New Zealand. Wellington: Ministry of Health.
(9) Ministry of Health. (2010) IT Health Board. http://www.ithealthboard.health.nz/. Retrieved 10/06/10.
(10) Cannolly, M., Boyd, M.-A., Kenealy, T., Moffitt, A., Sheridan, N. & Kolbe, 3. (2010) Alleviating the burden of chronic conditions in New Zealand: The ABCC NZ Study Workbook 2010. Auckland: The University of Auckland and Freemason's Unit of Geriatric Medicine. http://dhbrf.hrc.govt.nz/media/documents_abcc/ ABCC_Study_Workbook_Final.pdf. Retrieved 19/02/10.
(11) Ministry of Health. (2007) Diabetes surveillance. Wellington: Ministry of Health.
(12) Ministry of Health. (2008) The health and independence report 2008. Wellington: Ministry of Health.
(13) Davey, J. A., & Gee, S. (2002) life at 85 plus: A statistical review. Wellington: New Zealand Institute for Research on Ageing.
(14) Statistics New Zealand. (2010) QuickStats of 2006 census data. http://www.stats.govt.nz/Census/ 2006CensusHomePage/QuickStats.aspx. Retrieved 24/02/10.
(15) Nursing and Midwifery Workforce Strategy Group. (2006) Nursing workforce strategy, http://www.dhbnz.org.nz/ includes/downioad.aspx?ID=25740. Retrieved 16/06/08,
* For a report on the recent world congress on medical and health informatics, see p29.
Michelle Honey, RN, PhD, is a senior lecturer with the University of Auckland's school of nursing.
Robyn Cart, RN, specialised in cardio thoracic surgery before becoming customer services manager of Auckland District Health Board's (DHB) IT division. She was IMIA-NI world chair from 2006-2009.
Denise Irvine, RN, BSocSci, MBS, is director of e3Health consultancy. She is on the HINZ executive and is NZNO's representative on the International Council of Nurses' telenuring and nursing informatics network.
Lucy Westbrooke, RN, DipNg, PGDipBus (health informatics), works as an information management consultant for Auckland DHB's information and technology service.
Honey, Michelle^Carr, Robyn^Irvine, Denise^Westbrooke, Lucy
 
Source Citation
Carr, Robyn, et al. "Harnessing technology to benefit nursing: as technology and health informatics become an increasingly significant part of nursing practice, it is vital nurses are able to articulate their technological and professional needs for the benefit of patients." Kai Tiaki: Nursing New Zealand Nov. 2010: 24+. Academic OneFile. Web. 4 May 2012.
Document URL
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA243451589&v=2.1&u=phspuqc&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w


Gale Document Number: GALE|A243451589


INSIGHTS

Today, nurses need technology in order to make their work easy and not time consuming. Health care is guided by a national health strategy. This acknowledges the importance of good information management for better health outcomes, to reach the goal of good health and well-being for all New Zealanders throughout their lives. The infrastructure and communications and IT have now matured sufficiently, so high quality health care can be achieved, and patient safety and health outcomes improved.
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Nursing Informatics in Korea and Taiwan
Factors Influencing Computer Literacy of Taiwan and South Korea Nurses

Healthcare is experiencing a major transformation in its information technology base. Hospitals are adopting information technology (IT) to reduce costs and increase competitiveness. IT applications in healthcare are trending towards electronic patient records and even health records. Therefore, practices in nursing are also affected by IT. Many researchers have studied what computer literacy a nurse should possess, but have focused less on factors that actually impact computer literacy. The purposes of this study are to examine current computer literacy levels of nurses, and to indicate what variables influence their computer literacy. Taiwan and South Korea both implemented a national health insurance system, and used state-of-the art IT to provide higher volume and better quality of services. The data were collected from two case hospitals which are located in Taiwan and South Korea, respectively. By using a structured questionnaire, a total of 203 nurses responded 104 from Taiwan and 99 from South Korea. The results revealed that personal innovativeness in IT, computer education, and age are significant factors that affected computer literacy levels. These factors serve as reference for administrators and executives in hospitals, or nursing educators seeking the data necessary to make decisions on curriculum.

Author Affiliation:

(1) Department of Information Management, National Chung Cheng University, Chia-Yi, Taiwan, Republic of China

(2) Department of Healthcare Service Management, Mei-Ho Institute of Technology, Ping-Tung, Taiwan, Republic of China

(3) Graduate Institute of Health Care Organization Administration, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Republic of China

(4) Department of DSC & MIS, Miami University, Oxford, OH, 45056, USA

Article History:

Registration Date: 10/05/2008

Received Date: 02/03/2008

Accepted Date: 09/05/2008

Online Date: 05/06/2008

 
Source Citation
Chang, I-Chiu, et al. "Factors Influencing Computer Literacy of Taiwan and South Korea Nurses." Journal of Medical Systems 33.2 (2009): 133+. Academic OneFile. Web. 4 May 2012.
Document URL
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA233077413&v=2.1&u=phspuqc&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w


INSIGHTS

The nursing informatics in South Korea and Taiwan is advanced because they are a well developed country. In South Korea, they are called to be smart when it comes to technology, they lead the online gaming system of course. When it comes to healthcare, the said countries consist of computer literate people that apply their skills in their profession.  Since they lived in a developed country, they have advanced technology that is an advantage when it comes to health practice.
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Nursing Informatics in Canada

 Nursing informatics: why nurse leaders need to stay informed 


Full Text: 
ONCE AGAIN, NURSING Economic$ is keeping its eyes on the horizon of contemporary nursing practice and is pleased to announce a new column entitled "Nursing Informatics (see page 204)." The decision to launch an information technology column was an easy one, and builds on an information systems and technology column previously featured in the journal. As nurse leaders, we recognize health care is our business and, as such, we must respond seamlessly to clinical changes in the patient-centered care that will be created, supported, and enabled by technology. Therefore, to ensure our readership of nurse executives, managers, and faculty stay informed and knowledgeable about health information technology (IT) and the essential informatics competencies required to function within the patient-care environment, we asked Judy Murphy, RN, FACMI, FHIMSS, vice president--information services, Aurora Health Care, Milwaukee, WI; a HIMSS Board Member; and a member of the federal HIT Standards Committee to lead and manage the column's content.
Why Nurse Leaders Need to Stay Informed
It is our belief the use of IT to improve the efficiency, safety, and quality of health care delivery combined with the unique role of nursing warrants our undivided attention. Nursing leaders have a dual responsibility to develop systems in the world of IT to first, enable safer patient care and second, to support the work of managers and leaders by leveraging IT. Competency in clinical IT is an essential foundational tool for the leadership practice of managers and leaders and will become more important in the future as we develop more sophisticated clinical IT. This inaugural column of nursing informatics will act as a formidable reminder on how nursing informatics as a specialty (American Nurses Association, 2008), including the development of scope of practice, competencies, and certification has been invaluable to the nation's health IT dialogue and nursing's presence on federal IT boards and commissions (American Nurses Credentialing Center, n.d.). By including nursing informatics as a featured column, nurse leaders will have an opportunity to expand their understanding of the issues and importance surrounding IT system interoperability and health data exchanges including quality and patient safety, meaningful use, the TIGER Initiative (Technology Informatics Guiding Educational Reform), and the HITECH Act (Health IT for Economic and Clinical Health). The column will provide a place where nurse leaders can discover the latest information about health IT implementation issues such as electronic health records, decision support, standardized vocabularies, and evidence-based practice in automated care planning and documentation. Technology is only a means to an end and it can also contribute to nursing's and health care's strategic goal of safe and cost-effective patient-centered care. As technologies leverage and improve the workplace by providing data about the impact of nursing care, nurse leaders are able translate, synthesize, interpret, and manage the data into measurable outcomes.
Nursing Informatics and Patient-Center Care
We are on the edge of moving beyond the electronic health record to a dynamic, clinically intelligent system that can provide the nurse and other professionals with useable, evidence-based data at the point of care. There are many informed decisions that managers, chief nursing officers, and others in partnership with staff nurses need to make as we move into the new world of stimulus dollars. The implications of these decisions are of great financial and patient care concern now and in the long term. Nurse leaders need to be present at the tables where clinical IT is discussed and be key players in the decision making. However, that requires competency in the world of IT. Hence, this column was conceived as an endeavor to provide some of the information needed to build and maintain these skills for the nursing leader. "Meaningful use," interoperability, and health data exchanges are examples of topics stimulated by the HITECH Act that need the attention of clinical nursing leadership.
Timing Is Everything!
Ever since the passage of the Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, nurse leaders have come to recognize the promise made by President Obama when he committed federal funding of $19 billion in incentives allocated towards "meaningful use" of electronic health records (EHRs) in hospitals and ambulatory settings beginning in 2011 and ensuring that all medical records will be digitized by 2014. This commitment towards computerized health records will help avoid dangerous mistakes, reduce costs, and improve quality. The EHR helps connect and align patient-centered care into information that is distilled and used for good decision making towards improving quality and patient safety. We believe that launching the "Nursing Informatics" column will keep you connected and informed about meaningful, timely IT information for sound clinical decision making. We hope you believe so too.
REFERENCES
American Nurses Association. (2008). Nursing informatics: Scope and standards of practice. Silver Spring, MD: Nursebooks.org.
American Nurses Credentialing Center (n.d.). Nursing informatics certification. Retrieved from http://www.nursecredentialing.org/ NurseSpecialties/Informatics.aspx
Donna M. Nickitas, PhD, RN, CNAA, BC; Karlene Kerfoot, PhD, RN, CNAA, FAAN
Nickitas, Donna M.^Kerfoot, Karlene
 
Source Citation
Kerfoot, Karlene, and Donna M. Nickitas. "Nursing informatics: why nurse leaders need to stay informed." Nursing Economics May-June 2010: 141+. Academic OneFile. Web. 4 May 2012.
Document URL
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA230684659&v=2.1&u=phspuqc&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w


 INSIGHTS

The decision to launch an information technology column was an easy one, and builds on an information systems and technology column previously featured in the journal. I am concerned that nurses who have daily contact with patients in clinical settings are not educated or informed about the technological and legislative changes that impact their practice in a timely fashion. I am not sure if this because nursing leaders are not staying current with changes in nursing informatics trends and legislation , or if they are dispersing information on a "need to know" only basis. It is our belief the use of IT to improve the efficiency, safety, and quality of health care delivery combined with the unique role of nursing warrants our undivided attention. Nursing leaders have a dual responsibility to develop systems in the world of IT to first, enable safer patient care and second, to support the work of managers and leaders by leveraging IT.

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Wednesday, 2 May 2012
Eye Care


Ectropion/Entropion Procedure


This is a surgical correction for out-turning and in-turning lids.  In the operating room of the Phillips Eye Institute, an incision is made at the side of the lower lid.  Lower lid tissue is sutured to the lateral rim of the eye. This restores the lower lid to its original location and tightens its laxity.  We conduct as many postoperative visits as necessary to ensure proper healing.

Eyelid Lesions


For small skin lesions on the eyelid, we typically remove them under microscope control at the Diagnostic and Treatment area of the Phillips Eye Institute. Local anesthesia without sedation is usually used. We send removals for pathologic diagnosis as needed.  Cautery or sutures are applied to the excision site as necessary.  Follow-up is usually by phone or as needed depending upon the pathology report.

For more information on eyelid procedures, please contact us at 612.775.8009 or by email at info@clariseyecare.com.
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