Nursing Informatics: How Much Usage Is It Getting From Healthcare Facilities

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to enlighten and explore the concept of nursing informatics in a holistic manner. The core objective of the paper is to discuss nursing informatics in detail. Nonetheless, the paper confers how much usage of nursing informatics is affiliated with the healthcare facilities. The paper discusses the technological advancements witnessed by medical informatics systems implemented by different healthcare facilities. In addition, the paper enlightens different aspects of nursing and medical informatics through which the healthcare facilities manage the information flow within the organization and utilize the stored information as per their objectives.

Table of Contents

Introduction6

Medical Informatics7

Nursing Informatics and Knowledge Management9

Maintaining Personal Health Record via Healthcare Informatics13

Maintaining Electronic Health Records16

Analysis of healthcare Informatics in Context of a Case Study18

Clinical Information Management20

Trends in Medical Informatics System20

Conclusion21

Nursing Informatics: How Much Usage Is It Getting From Healthcare Facilities

Introduction

Health informatics as a terminology has been used to cover information, technology, processes, analytical tools and techniques, governance, and the skills needed to use all of these to improve healthcare. Although the term health informatics only came into use around 1973, it is a study that is as old as healthcare itself. It was born the day that a clinician first wrote down some impressions about a patient's illness, and used these notes to learn how to treat other patients. In essence health informatics is the study of how one organizes in order to create and run healthcare organizations and he suggested that in this century the study of informatics will become as fundamental to the practice of medicine as anatomy has been to the last.

The term 'data' is defined as a unit (or units) of fact without any understanding of how one fact may relate to another. Consequently, data are symbols open to interpretation, but existing without meaning. Information is defined when data is formatted, structured and named. In simple terms, information is data with an associated understanding of context that leads to the identification of meaning. As a result, information is a dynamic concept dependant on an individual's ability to understand data. Knowledge is defined as the understanding required for the use of information in order to bring about action. Subsequently, knowledge is complex and has associations with learning; for example, where data and information can be easily transferred, knowledge must be learned.

The management of information specifically related to medical care is sometimes called medical informatics. The type of information gathered depends on many factors including the type of institution, ranging from a small doctor's office to a large clinic to a full hospital and the nature and scope of the treatment provided. However, one can make some generalizations. For outpatients, the required information includes an extensive medical record for each patient, including records of medical tests and their results, prescriptions and their status, and so on. For hospital patients, there are also admissions records, an extensive list of itemized charges, and records that must be maintained for public health or other ...