True professionals understand the importance of the divide and conquer rule in handling activities collectively. This approach ensures that members of a team are given responsibilities according to their capabilities and skills. Similarly, collaboration and division of labor is a crucial tool in the nursing industry because it ensures that all resources, including knowledge and talent, are pulled together for the successful completion of duties.
Nursing informatics is an area that is slowly but steadily improving the interactions among clinical professionals. The field incorporates various analytical and information sciences with nursing science as a discipline to share data, information, knowledge, and wisdom among medical officers. Nursing informatics has made it possible for clinics to effectively apply information technology to their operations.
I currently work at Miami Valley Hospital and was previously an employee at Premier Healthcare in Ohio. Consequently, there is a number of observations I have made on how nurse informaticists and technology professionals collaborate with other specialists in the medical institutions. Informatics is associated with the interaction between humans and computing systems to make sense of collected data and information (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2017).
One of the issues I have noted is that information is the core of healthcare facilities. Right from the time a patient walks in, the receptionist, who is a medical record expert, enters and retrieves data from the hospital system before directing the patient. The next stop is always the nursing triage, where the nurses use the information keyed at the reception to call out the patients in the queue.
The nurses then record blood pressure, BMI, and temperature data in the computer which will be visible to the doctor who will make a diagnosis based on the same information. The software used in hospitals is an example of an information technology developed and maintained by informaticists (Mosier et al., 2019). It is also a demonstration of how nursing informatics specialists interact with various medical professionals. Consequently, the creation of an effective computing software demands that the nursing informatics specialists interact and collect the necessary data from other specialists.
The interaction between nursing informaticists and other specialists is meant to enhance the flow of information and communication in the concerned medical facility, which calls for strategies aimed at improving this process. First, it is necessary to conduct regular seminars and training to ensure all specialists in the hospital are conversant with basic computing skills. This step will help in improving the collaboration among medics with the help of different information technologies. For instance, hospital employees can only effectively use a new system collaboratively if they have had sessions with the technology experts.
Similarly, there are should be forums where the health workers can give necessary feedback and identify the challenges faced in using data technology (Sipes, 2016). This will enable informaticists to make the required changes to the existing data-related inventions.
Most government and private healthcare centers have embraced nursing informatics as an important profession. It is imperative that nurses coordinate with therapists, pharmacists, physicians, and other professionals to deliver the best medical care (Sipes, 2016). However, without proper handling of information, it would be impossible to serve the patients. Consequently, informatics has improved the process of sharing information among specialists, allowing nurses to use all available resources to enhance treatment outcomes and overall patient satisfaction. Informatics improves the productivity of nurses by empowering them with the right computing skills required to provide better care.
Digitalization has become an integral part of the healthcare industry. It has not only reduced the errors that accompany traditional methods of handling information but has also improved the coordination between specialists in hospitals. Although there are individuals who point out that the use of algorithms has interfered with the provider-patient relationship, there is enough proof that the evolution of informatics has transformed the coordination among nurses and other medical specialists. However, training sessions and open forums where nursing informaticists and other professionals are present are some of the strategies which can be used to improve the application of information technology in hospitals.
References
McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. G. (2017). Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge (4th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Mosier, S., Roberts, W. D., & Englebright, J. (2019). A systems-level method for developing nursing informatics solutions: The role of executive leadership. JONA: The Journal of Nursing Administration, 49(11), 543-548. Web.
Sipes, C. (2016). Project management: Essential skill of nurse informaticists. Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 225, 252-256.
