Critical Thinking and Informatics



Critical Thinking and Informatics

Introduction

It has been observed from several past decades that technology has been forming a establishing its position in the field of nursing as well. The nurses are also required to be technically literate enough to carry out the most advanced tasks in their profession. The primary technological needs in the field of nursing include basic data processing, involving nurses, implementation of health care applications and computerized programs, managing and forming a nursing data base systematically, analyzing system, handling legal issues, applying research processes and statistical tools, and several knowledge of computer programs. The basic idea behind this approach is to teach nurses the significance and application of computerized programs and applications in their respective roles and profession. With the emergence of nursing information system, and hospital information system, nurses have started participating and involving in managing computerized systems to carry out their routine tasks. These technology oriented programs have made complicated data and records of patents quite easy to access and assemble for nurses to perform their task effectively. However, the computer prorating and applications were found to be difficult to learn for many nursing students earlier their primary focus was on taking care of patients only. This point well explains the degree of resistance to computer literacy in the field of nursing (Thomas, Delaney and Weiler, 1989).

Discussion

The nursing informatics refers to information technology based conceptions, orientations and roles. Earlier the aforementioned concept was considered to be the application of computerized technology in all the associated fields of nursing that is inclusive of education, services, and research. Later this definition was bounded to a certain limit of information technology that associates nurses to the patient care data and records only. This broad term was further described for the purpose of processing information and ...