RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC – As the largest single profession in the U.S. healthcare industry and the frontline of patient care, nursing is a critical component of successful healthcare IT adoption, according to a North Carolina consortium to improve healthcare.
The North Carolina Healthcare Information and Communications Alliance (NCHICA), a nonprofit that aims to improve care through advancing IT initiatives, met yesterday to formalize collective actions nurses can take to improve care through the use of HIT.
With more than 2.4 million registered nurses practicing across the nation, “nurses are a key component of the brain trust in healthcare,” said Holt Anderson, executive director of NCHICA.
“NCHICA understands the necessity of having these individuals at the table when discussing HIT issues and strategy,” Anderson said. “Their collaboration is the key to understanding where technology solutions are needed – or in need of improvement – at the point of care.”
Anderson said NCHICA’s newly formed nursing workgroup will provide an ongoing forum for discussing how to educate nurses on HIT integration that is most beneficial to their patients and the least disruptive to workflow.
According to Marilyn Chow, R.N., vice president of Patient Care Services at Kaiser Permanente, preliminary findings of an American Academy of Nursing (AAN) Technology Targets Study will provide a start on how to identify technology solutions to medical-surgical unit workflow inefficiencies. The study, not yet released and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is evaluating the technology processes at 25 acute care sites.
“Improving the practice environment is essential to retaining nurses, providing safe patient care and increasing the time nurses spend directly with patients,” Chow said.
Joyce Sensmeier, R.N., vice president of Informatics for the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), said nurses can significantly impact patient care by getting involved in standards harmonization efforts and healthcare information exchange.
“Continued active involvement by nurses in standards processes such as use case development and public comment opportunities will ensure their voices are heard,” Sensmeier said. “The presence of nurses in these processes has already produced results.”
