Information Management in Healthcare

Information Management in Healthcare

It is important to understand the importance of healthcare information systems within an organization. Technology changes continue to occur in healthcare on a frequent basis. As the nurse leader of an organization, you must have an understanding and be involved in the planning, development, and evaluation of information technology within your organization.
Information Management in Healthcare
On any given day, nursing management, its staff, and other healthcare providers view and utilize large amounts of data or facts. Generally the data collected is used in some way to provide and or improve the quality of patient care. Nurse leaders should be knowledgeable of meaningful ways to use data, such as providing a resource for evidence-based practice, and they should be aware of their influence to role model and embrace change in supporting quality patient outcomes. Understanding and utilizing computer technology can aid the nurse leader in better managing nursing information, such as responding to e-mails, running reports, and analyzing various data such as retention and turnover rates. The Internet helps transfer data between organizations and is also another option to utilize when marketing services, facilities, and products. Nurse recruitment and online job applications can also be completed over the Internet rather than coming onsite.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act), was signed into law by President Obama on February 17, 2009 (The TIGER, 2013). The Recovery Act mandated that all patients must have an electronic medical record by the year 2012. Organizations continue to work on this initiative. One resource to provide assistance for healthcare organizations to adopt technology and informatics and improve the delivery of patient care comes from the Technology, Informatics Guiding Education Reform (TIGER) Initiative Foundation. The TIGER Initiative Foundation helps support organizations in preparing their clinical staff to use informatics and technology and improve how care is delivered to patients (The TIGER, 2013).
According to the American Nurses Association (2008), the specialty of nursing integrates nursing science, information science, and computer science to manage and communicate data, information, wisdom, and knowledge in nursing practice.
Knowledge and utilization of the TIGER nursing-informatics competencies will assist an informatics nurse in his or her role and assist other staff in ongoing education and informatics support. Three categories of nursing-informatics competencies were published by the TIGER Initiative, which include basic computer skills, information literacy, and clinical information management (Hunter, McGonigle, & Hebda, 2013).
To support this role, the nurse leader and informatics nurse collaborate with the information systems (IS) department. It is helpful for both the nursing and the IS departments to understand the flow of data and be able to retrieve and utilize the data. Chamberlain College of Nursing offers a specialized track in the Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) program for nursing informatics. The TIGER nursing-informatics competencies are threaded throughout the specialty informatics courses within the program to ensure that graduates are prepared for their nurse-informatics role upon graduation. Informatics nurses prepared at the graduate level are known as informatics nurse specialists.
Changing to a new concept or system can be challenging for some individuals. Providing clear communication, education and training, and supportive measures, such as a super-user for an area, generally will allow staff members to have the needed tools, support, and resources to be successful in the new process. At a minimum, nurses should be knowledgeable on how to use the software, enter and extract data, print needed reports, and evaluate the data to make appropriate clinical decisions for patients (Roussel, 2015).
Information within your organization can be helpful to support research and education, resolve and support management issues, and improve clinical practice. Technology advances in healthcare have also made it possible for nursing staff to complete many continuing education programs on the Internet. The skills and knowledge of an informatics nurse can assist and support the nursing staff during a new system implementation, a system upgrade, or in a variety of other roles. The following presents several aspects of the informatics-nurse role for nurse managers to consider and utilize when necessary.
Review Figure 13-1
Please review Figure 13-1—Roles of Informatics Nurse (page 502 of the Management and Leadership for Nurse Administrators textbook).
In addition to the support of an informatics nurse, network or server administrators may be employed by the organization to support internal and/or external computer networks. Many organizations have adopted handheld devices, bedside charting, or computers on wheels to ensure that data are entered and accessed when needed by healthcare personnel. It is vital to ensure that patient information is not viewed by persons without, and that confidentiality is maintained. The nurse leader should be notified of any security breach.
Legal and Ethical Issues
Providing quality patient care requires collecting various data on each patient. It is imperative that the integrity of the data is maintained to protect patient confidentiality, and that data are available when needed. Some examples of data collected are name, age, financial resource, temperature, pulse, respiration, and blood pressure. These data must be protected to ensure the patient’s privacy of information. Accurate, precise, clear, reliable data that is current and easy to interpret is helpful for nurses and other staff to make appropriate decisions.
The specialty role of the informatics nurse can help provide guidance and oversight to the organization regarding information technology and data. Educating healthcare personnel on topics such as verification techniques, system prompts, data mining, and data cleansing can help prevent erroneous data (Roussel, 2015). The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) addresses many issues related to patient security and privacy; however, with the integration of various technologies, new challenges may develop (Roussel, 2015). Privacy is the right to not share information. Once a patient reveals private information, we are responsible for keeping it confidential.
The organization must ensure that the confidentiality and security of patient information is maintained. Key components of HIPAA, as it relates to computerized information, includes privacy, security, and code sets (Roussel, 2015). A nurse leader must be informed and address any issues regarding ethical and legal issues related to technology and patient information that occur.
Summary
This week, we discussed an overview of management of information systems in healthcare, the importance of patient confidentiality, and the roles of the nurse leader and the informatics nurse. Next week, we will explore throughput issues in healthcare organizations.

Reference
Roussel, L. (2015). Management and leadership for nurse administrators (7th ed.). Boston: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
• Chapter 11: Information Management and Knowledge Development as Actions for Leaders
Required Article
Grennan, M.J. Jr. (2013, Jul–Aug).Quality improvement and patient safety in the age of reform: Preconditions for success. Physician Executive, 39 (4), 28, 30, 32.
Recommended Article
Bostic, B. (2013, February). How healthcare CRM drives action and resolves issues. Medical Laboratory Observer, 45 (2), 24–6.
American Nurses Association (2008). Nursing informatics: Scope and standards of practice. Silver Springs: MD.
Hunter, K., McGonigle, D., & Hebda, T. (2013). TIGER-based measurement of nursing informatics competencies: The development and implementation of an online tool for self-assessment Journal of Nursing Education and Practice, 3(12), 70-80.
National Telecommunications and Information Administration (n.d.). The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Retrieved from http://www.ntia.doc.gov/page/2011/american-recovery-and-reinvestment-act-2009
Roussel, L. (2015). Management and leadership for nurse administrators. (7th ed.). Boston: Jones & Bartlett Learning.