Policy/Regulation Fact Sheet

Policy: Education and Professional Development

Policy description

                                                 

• Health information technology is transforming the field of nursing. Informatics is a requirement in that nurses are required to employ technologies to health care to promote quality health care. In other words, nurses should apply computer science, information science, and nursing science to deliver quality health care (Darvish et al, 2014).
• To effectively implement the technology needed, educational programs should be developed.   The policy of education and professional development should be addressed to provide the nurses with the knowledge to support practice advancement.
• Since the pace of technology is increasing, it is important to provide the nurses and those who want to pursue nursing informatics with skills and knowledge on how to use information technology (Darvish et al, 2014).
• Today, nursing apply the information technology in all aspects of nursing and this means nurses require computer skills and informatics skills. These skills enable nurses to use computer technology safely and improve nursing care (Darvish et al, 2014). The skills also enable the nurses to use nursing data, interpret the flow of information, apply analytic techniques, and conduct basic science, among other roles.
• Generally, the role of nursing informatics is to integrate nurses in the field of IT and for this reason, nurses needed education and professional development on information technology so that they can successfully improve quality of care.

 

Impact of the policy on system implementation

• The policy of education and professional development will impact system implementation. First, it is important to understand that systems implementation involves effective implementation of the information system, ensure effective operations, ensure quality standards, and ensure that the new system is available, among other activities (Darvish et al, 2014).
• When nurses receive education and professional development on nursing informatics, they will familiarize themselves with the IT, they will develop their perception about the technology, and more importantly, they will effectively implement the system. Education and training will also enable the nurses and nurse managers to select the best system design,  improve the system, solve problems,  apply clinical evidenced, and reduce medical error and financial loss (Darvish et al, 2014). In general, education programs will enable nurses to implement information technology.

 

 

 

Impact of the policy on clinical care, patient/ provider interactions, and workflow

• The policy will impact clinical care. In the clinical setting, education and professional development will enable the clinicians to utilize electronic medical records, and they will collect clinical data using data collection devices (Darvish et al, 2014).
• Clinical will provide comprehensive care and evidence-based care. Note that the nursing informatics allows health care organizations to use data stored in the data systems. This means that there should professional with experience in informatics and medicine. 
• Thus, the healthcare organization needs to provide education and training to the nurses so that they can have the ability to collect and interpret the data and use the systems effectively (Darvish et al, 2014). As a result of an increase of the professional and education level, the healthcare organizations will analyze the data contained in the data systems.
• The education and professional development policy will impact patient/ provider interactions. Note that the nursing informatics allows the clinical to work in a technology-rich environment where they will collect clinical nursing information, conduct medical diagnosis, make medical decisions (Darvish et al, 2014).
• Users will improve patients' care and improve their management. As a result, the nurses will have effective communication with patients, they will use personal health records, and they will reduce medical errors, improve security and privacy, reduce the length of stay, and reduce administration costs.
• The policy will  impact the workflow  in that  the use of online portal systems allow the  flow of work  in the clinical setting,  the  nursing informatics, as well as the education and training, will bridge the gap that exists in the clinical setting  since  the nurses will have all the skills required to the main workflow such as  data collection skills.

 

Organization policies and procedures to support policy implementation 

• Policy to protect electronic health information
• Policy to promote an organizational culture
• Security policies
• Confidentiality policies
• Release of information policies

 

 

 

 

 

Reference

Darvish, A., Bahramnezhad, F., Keyhanian, S., & Navidhamidi, M. (2014). The role of nursing informatics

on promoting quality of health care and the need for appropriate education. Global journal of

health science, 6(6), 11.