Healthcare information systems are designed to facilitate the processes inherent in daily routine tasks and decisions made by the nursing staff and other medical workers working with patients in multiple healthcare settings. Despite the undeniable usefulness of this field of knowledge, the change experienced by nurses when transitioning to the use of medical records in their professional performance might be rather challenging.
In my case, the transition to using healthcare information technologies in the context of providing inpatient care to post-operative patients in orthopedic surgery was not difficult due to my experience in informatics and software use. I believe, and my opinion is supported by research, that prior basic informatics education constitutes a solid background for a successful implementation of nursing informatics in the healthcare setting (Kinnunen et al., 2019). Thus, the ease of transition derives from informatics use competency at large and one’s skills flexibility in particular.
Overall, I might evaluate my experience with transitioning to healthcare information systems as a positive one due to both my professional results and the well-being of my patients. The use of electronic medical records has significantly contributed to the efficiency of working with each individual patient. The consideration of individual particularities embodied in large volumes of electronic data accessible instantly helps to comply with the patient-centered practice principles (Sutton et al., 2020). Since the addressing of patients’ concerns improved after the implementation of healthcare information systems, I assume that this experience was successful.
Moreover, the efficiency of nursing task completion increases under the influence of nursing informatics use. Indeed, I find it more convenient and productive to find relevant information available on the patient within the system, as well as establish inter-professional communication when using informatics for evidence-based practice.
Thus, the experience with transitioning to healthcare information systems is characterized by a multitude of benefits and patient-centered improvements, which should be used as a basis for promoting nursing informatics development.
References
Kinnunen, U. M., Heponiemi, T., Rajalahti, E., Ahonen, O., Korhonen, T., & Hyppönen, H. (2019). Factors related to health informatics competencies for nurses – results of a national electronic health record survey. CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing, 37(8), 420-429.
Sutton, R. T., Pincock, D., Baumgart, D. C., Sadowski, D. C., Fedorak, R. N., & Kroeker, K. I. (2020). An overview of clinical decision support systems: Benefits, risks, and strategies for success. Nature Partner Journals Digital Medicine, 3(1), 1-10.
