NURS 6051 THE IMPACT OF NURSING INFORMATICS ON PATIENT OUTCOMES AND PATIENT CARE EFFICIENCIES
NURS 6051 THE IMPACT OF NURSING INFORMATICS ON PATIENT OUTCOMES AND PATIENT CARE EFFICIENCIES
Nursing informatics is today a core aspect of nursing professional activities and processes. In their paper, Al Najjar et al. (2022) assert that nursing informatics reinforces nursing through the provision of standard language systems, decision-making support, improved application of technology, and better interactions among patients and clinical professionals. The purpose of this paper is to propose an informatics program or initiative to the organizational leadership to improve patient outcomes and patient care efficiencies in the facility as well as patient care experience.
Description of the Proposed Project
The need to improve care provision implores nurses to consider a host of approaches leveraging technologies in their practice settings. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in nursing is still relatively low yet it can offer increased benefits in improving efficiencies in patient care and outcomes. An important part of AI for nursing is predictive analytics which allows nurses to discover previously unknown patterns in different sources of clinical and operational data that can help them make better decisions (Booth et al., 2021). Using predictive analytics can help nurses to attain actionable insights that lead to greater accuracy, and timely yet appropriate interventions in a prescriptive manner for both patients and operational efficiencies.
In this case, the proposed project is syndromic surveillance that leverages both predictive analytics and EHRs alerts. While patient alerts lead to nurse fatigue, the proposed project will not rely on alerts alone but incorporate predictive analytics as a component of artificial intelligence (AI) (Carroll,2018). Real-time surveillance of patients can help identify possible adverse effects immediately. Instantaneous clinical decision support tools then take the analyzed surveillance and apply it within the shortest time to signal nurses to take immediate or precautionary measures or steps (Glassman, 2018). Poor usability, alert fatigue, and understanding of the program by different end-users have impacted the execution of real-time decision support tools. However, using predictive analytics algorithms and the optimization of EHR alerts will improve to ensure that syndromic surveillance improves patient outcomes in any healthcare setting.
Stakeholders Impacted by the Project
The implementation of this project will impact a host of stakeholders. Key among these include nurses, patients, their families, healthcare systems, and physicians. In their article, Schwalbe et al. (2018) assert that healthcare project stakeholders include sponsors, project managers, project teams, support staff, and regulatory entities. They also include third parties and critics of the project. In this proposed project, the project manager, the sponsor, and the team will be stakeholders as they will be directly involved in project development, implementation, and coordination. Secondly, nurses, nurse managers and leaders, support staff, and other healthcare personnel will be impacted since they will use the outcome of the syndromic surveillance to implement interventions for identified patients in their clinical practice. Patients as stakeholders will attain better outcomes through the reduction of the possibility of adverse events.
The regulatory bodies and the third parties, especially system vendors and developers, will ensure that the project’s implementation does not violate any regulations and complies with data protection and privacy laws like HIPAA and HITECH (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2022). The technology should also not be harmful to patients. Third parties like insurance organizations and even the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will be influenced as the initiative is aimed at reducing the overall cost of care through improved efficiencies and patient-quality care outcomes. The entire practice facility or healthcare organization is also a stakeholder as the project should align with its overall goals, strategy, and culture based on the mission and vision statements.
Patient Outcomes or Patient Care Efficiencies
The core aspect of any health improvement project or initiative is to enhance patient outcomes through the quality of care and enhancing efficiencies in processes. In their paper, Booth et al. (2021) implore nurses and healthcare providers as well as organizations to adopt informatics and other forms of healthcare technologies to improve patient outcomes and efficiencies in their processes. Therefore, the benefits of this initiative are immense for patients, nurses, and the healthcare system.
The use of syndro