Fact, Not Fable: Nursing informatics transport documentation into modern age

[nursedotcom]

Perhaps there were good reasons Humpty Dumpty could not be put together again. Maybe all the king's horses didn't hand Dumpty's complete medical records over to all the king's men, or the king's men couldn't read the records. It's possible the men used different terminology than the horses did to describe Dumpty's condition? And even if Dumpty survived, his caregivers might have inadequately documented the treatment, fallen short of regulatory requirements and failed to get properly reimbursed.

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[amygarside]

This technology is helpful to the healthcare and medical industry, but should be done with accuracy.

[oldntiredRN]

Nursing Informatics is a critical must for every nurse today.Nursing informatics is the way of the future. We can no longer fiscially afford to deliver healthcare in the old traditional ways we did in the past- there are too many patients and they are too complexly ill. There are too many social and economical problems surrounding each one of these patients that are making their conditions worse.
There is a lack of access either through geography( rural remote patient populations that have physical difficulty getting to the health care, or economic means- millions of unemployed who have either lost their health inurance or never had it, there are homelessness due to the economy- homeless patterns have changed( the unstable domicile- CDC.gov), There is a low literacy and genral literacy level in a patient population- exclusive of their economic status. There is a huge lack of knowldege of these determinants of health (healthy People 2020) on the part of today's nursing workforce working in the outpatient departments and clinics in this country. I recently lost my outpatient clinic triage position- a new position to the clinic, backed by the administration becasue the staff didn't know what the "triage nurse " role is, didn't know how to orient me so there for refused to orient and was about told to 'get out'! at every turn. Like call center nursing triage was"witch craft" The staff was quite comfortable continuing to have the secretary and lesser licenced nursing personel triage pediatric patients who had fallen off beds to be seen in the clinic instead of the ED and over ride appointments for same day appointments on liver failure patients filling up with edema. . These are not old experienced nurses who may not be up on the newer trends in health care due to out of school for years, but newer nurses who should know better. We have a huge lack of knowledge problem in our nursing workforce. Feelings of staff being threatened due to a lack of knowledge is no longer an acceptable excuse or option for this kind of impedment toward moving into the future of healthcare delivery.

[pronurse45]

More and more technology are being developed and glad that nurses and other health professionals were able to keep up with the trend...makes our life a lot easier!