Title: Nursing informatics: The EHR and beyond - American Nurse
Headings: Nursing informatics: The EHR and beyond
Nursing informatics: The EHR and beyond
Informatics nurses increase efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance patients’ lives.
Takeaways:
Background
Healthcare impact
Specialty insight
Clinical experience
Training and education
Roles and responsibilities
Where can you work?
Compensation
Networking and membership
Build a network
The future of informatics nursing
Tanna L. Nelson is a nursing informatics specialist at Texas Health Resources Dallas-Fort Worth and 2018 American Nursing Informatics Association (ANIA) Chapter President. Cheryl D. Parker is a clinical assistant professor and educational technology specialist at the University of Texas at Tyler School of Nursing and 2019 president-elect of the ANIA National Board of Directors.
Selected references
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Content: Using EHRs and other clinical systems, informatics nurses can gather data rapidly, creating opportunities for innovation. Because they are well positioned to recognize healthcare gaps and find transformative ways to guide practice, informatics nurses lead initiatives that improve patient well-being. At John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas, informatics nurses developed and operationalized an algorithm for recognizing intimate partner violence and red flags for human trafficking. The algorithm fits seamlessly into the emergency department (ED) nurse workflow, provides step-by-step instructions to the nurse, and includes a narrative to use if the patient screens as positive. Patients are offered assistance immediately. At the same organization, informatics nurses maximize the use of mobile technology to bring healthcare to the homeless. Clinicians bring the benefits of EHR technology into the field, where they create walk-in visits, provide treatments, prescribe and arrange for delivery of medications, offer education and follow- up care, and monitor health conditions. The program has reduced unnecessary ED visits and preventable complications. Informatics nurses use advanced analytics skills to quantify the true value of the work clinicians do each day. At Texas Health Resources in Dallas-Fort Worth, informatics nurses show how sending vital signs from the machine directly into the EHR on medical/surgical and telemetry units saves hours of manual documentation each day.