Faculty of Nursing

Tanta University
Master degree
Preparatory course
2023-2024

Nursing Informatics Roles , Competencies and Skills

Under Supervision :
DR\ Sabah
Prepared by :
Sharifa Muhammad Muhammad Abu Alsaud.
Abeer Samir Abdelaal Mohamed Farhat.
Marianne Fayez Habashi Messiha
Mariam Adel Awad Hanna.
Mariam Muhammad Fathallah Alsayed Aljawhary.
Mona Abdel Nasser Marwan Ahmed
Nourhan Samir Mahmoud Salem.
Hagar Abd-Elkader Amin Fahmy
Outlines :
❖ Introduction
❖ What Is Nursing Informatics
❖ Benefits of computer in health care
❖ Goal of nursing informatics
❖ Role of the nursing informatics
❖ Nursing informatics competencies
❖ Skills levels of competencies in nursing informatics
❖ Three Areas of focus for Nursing Informatics Competencies
❖ Strategies for Achieving Nursing competence
❖ Essential Skills Needed By an Informatics Nurse
❖ Reference
Introduction :-
The use of technology in nursing has increased rapidly since the 1990s. The
use of computers in health care has increased dramatically over that time
period, as well as in other areas such as telemedicine, technology-assisted
therapy, and digital health records (DHR).

Computer technology is increasingly being used in healthcare settings. Nurses

can find computer applications useful in a variety of ways. Computer software
and artificial intelligence can assist nurses with patient documentation,
scheduling, analyzing data, and streamlining workflow.

Computers are also used for documenting treatments and prescribing

medication, as well as communicating with patients. Read on to learn more
about how computers are used in nursing.

Nursing Informatics acts as an agent for change in the nursing profession and
healthcare management. It’s imperative that nurses recognize the significance
of nursing informatics to their careers and patient care and understand its
potential benefits and impact.
What Is Nursing Informatics :-
. Nursing Informatics is a specialty that integrates nursing science, computer science, and
information science to manage and communicate date, information, and knowledge in
nursing practice to support patients, nurses,and other providers in their decision-making
in all roles and settings

Benefits of computer in health care :-

1. Decrease redundancy of data entry.
2. Decrease time spent in documentation.
3. Increase time for client care .
4. Facilitation of data collection for research
5. Improve communication and decrease potential error
6. Creation of life time clinical record facilitated by information system

Goal of nursing informatics :-

to improve the health of people and communities while reducing costs.
• Reducing mistakes: Nurse informatics, such as clinical decision support
systems (CDSSs), can aid nurses in making key decisions more easily while
decreasing errors (and, consequently, costs) during the field experience
• Information flow can be improved: variety of benefits of nursing
informatics makes all possible and significantly advances patient care, with
health professionals being able to access, share and disseminate patient
records more efficiently – without errors
• Improving patient record storage: Nursing informatics improves care
quality by securely storing and sharing patient records electronically, thus
decreasing nurse workload and the potential risk of errors or delays
• Empowering patients: Patients who maintain medical records can more
easily keep track of symptoms and medications while reaching out to
healthcare professionals when needed.
• Save time: Nurse informatics – particularly its automation of a broad
range of medical tasks, such as warning treating medical professionals of
potential contraindications – is an efficient and time-saving solution that
improves patient care in a range of settings.

Role of the nursing informatics:-

• Assessment: computers helps in gathering and storing the data about
the patient.
• Patient monitoring: computers in emergency, ICU , CCU , NICU are widely
used for hemodynamic and vital signs monitoring ,calculation of
physiological indices such as peripheral vascular resistance and cardiac
out put and monitoring the CVP and pulmonary artery pressure.
• Documentation:computers help in recording nursing observations.
• Implementing and updating information technologies within their
organization
• Participating in project planning and integration with other
organizational activities
• Collaborating with other health care professionals in evaluating projects
and determining key benchmarks for use in subsequent evaluations
• Assessing department and organizational technology needs
• Improving the use of technology within the organization, including
clinical practices and workflows
• Providing training and support for other health care professionals as they
use health care systems
• Evaluating clinical statistics
• Researching the latest methods for improving patient care
• Managing electronic medical records
• Updating the national database of health care information
• Developing procedures and policies related to health care systems
 • Developing organizational policies and standards .

Nursing informatics competencies :-

It means knowledge and skills in electronic and structured documentation.
❖ Competence : the ability to obtain, store, retrieve, and communicate
data, information, knowledge, and wisdom, which is essential to nursing
practice.
Nurses must be educated and competent in nursing informatics in order to
exhibit safe and effective nursing practice

Skills levels of competencies in nursing informatics

• Beginning Nurses (Level 1) “Beginning nurses have fundamental
information management and computer technology skills and use existing
information systems and available information to manage their practice.”

• Experienced Nurses (Level 2) “Experienced nurses have proficiency in their

domain of interest (e.g., public health). These nurses are highly skilled in using
information management and computer technology skills to support their
major area of practice. They see relationships among data elements, and
make judgments based on trends and patterns within these data. Experienced
nurses use current information systems, but collaborate with the informatics
nurse specialist to suggest
• Informatics Specialists (Level 3) “Informatics [nurse] specialists (INSs) are
registered nurses prepared at least at the baccalaureate level who possess
additional knowledge and skills specific to information management and
computer technology. They focus on information needs for the practice of
nursing, which includes education, administration, research, and clinical
practice. INS’s practices are built on the integration and application of
information science, computer science, and nursing science. In their practice,
INS’s use…critical thinking, process skills, data management skills, systems
development life cycle, and computer skills.

• Informatics innovators (Level 4)“Informatics innovators are educationally

prepared to conduct informatics research and to generate informatics theory.
These nurses lead the advancement of informatics practice and research, They
function with an ongoing healthy skepticism of existing data management
practices and are creative in developing solutions. Innovators possess a
sophisticated level of understanding and skills, and understand the
interdependence of systems, disciplines, and outcomes.

Three Areas of focus for Nursing Informatics

Competencies :-
There are three areas where nurse informatics need to focus their
competency development efforts.
a. Computer Literacy: a set of skills that allow individuals to use computer
technology to accomplish tasks.
b. Informatics Knowledge: a set of cognitive processes that allows the
individual to recognize what, when, and where information is needed
and to locate, evaluate, and use that information appropriately.
c. Informatics Skills: the technical ability to use tools and techniques to
improve information and knowledge access, integration, management
and use.
.
.

Strategies for Achieving Nursing competence:

There are four potential strategies for providing NI education:

Undergraduate and diploma nursing programs (integrated into curriculum or

as individual courses)
Graduate programs(NI speciality or electives)
Formal continuing education for practicing nurse/ NI certificate program
Noncredit /Informal continuing education
No single strategy will adequately prepare all nurses with NI competencies.
The emphasis on one strategy over another and the resulting shifting of
resources requires discussion to develop an overall national overall education
strategy.
1- Put nursing programs to identify the competencies needed and how
theses might be met
2- Healthcare agencies within a geographic area to provide basic NI
education programs for practicing nurse.
3- Provide core IT skills and resourses to students address infrastructure
requirements.
4- Faculties provide informatics education through core facilities
training.
5- Cooperation of health care organizations and educational facilities to
provide training facilities.
6- Creative solutions for limited infrastructure budgets.
7- Healthcare professions as well as educational institutions should
providing access to expertise, hardware and software.

Essential Skills Needed By an Informatics Nurse:-

Being successful in the field of Nursing Informatics takes a combination of
different skills.

1. Interpersonal skills : Health care usually requires teamwork and collaboration ,

which benefit when staff members are skilled at (conflict resolution, flexibility,
empathy and teamwork.
2. (2)Data analytics: A key skill in nursing informatics is the ability to screen
large databases of raw data and analyze them using various statistical
 software. Following data analysis, nursing informatics professionals then
interpret these findings to identify trends or make predictions.
3. Critical thinking and problem-solving: An important aspect of nursing
informatics is the analysis of disparities in health care. Nursing informatics
professionals can think critically about health care systems, identify
opportunities for improvement and present solutions to problems impeding
the system's ability to produce favorable results.
4. Communication skills: The ability to communicate effectively ,also the
ability to break down and explain this information to those from various in
way they all can understand is critical.
5. Technical knowledge: Nursing informatics professionals typically possess a
high level of technical knowledge, including traditional clinical nursing
competencies, technology-based skills and others that depend on their role.
This technical knowledge, which is continually changing, is vital for nursing
informatics professionals to succeed.
6. Computer skills: Health informatics focuses on implementing technological
developments to analyze data and form evidence-based conclusions, so
nursing informatics professionals often have high competency in
computing. This can ensure they assist with the construction of data
infrastructure and collaborate productively with software engineers to
design these systems.
7. Project Management Skills: Nursing informatics professionals understand
the life cycle of various projects related to clinical research, data analysis,
software development and informatics tools implementation. They can
plan, manage and execute projects and implement processes to improve
patient outcomes. Process is the gold mine of informatics nursing
8. Ability to work with health data systems: Using health data systems and
electronic health records is vital for achieving better outcomes

9. Problem solving skills: informatics can involve (clinical challenges, such as

improving the sharing of patients data between providers or information
technology processes that need to be improved )
10. Programming knowledge: computer programming may give you an
advantage over your competition and broaden professional options in the
informatics field , especially if staff wants to have an important role in
efforts to build information system for healthcare organization.
Reference :-
https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/nursing-informatics-
definition

https://www.registerednursing.org/nursing-informatics/

https://conceptsall.com/top-9-uses-of-computer-in-nursing/
https://www.cna-aiic.ca/en/nursing/nursing-tools-and-resources/nursing-
informatics
https://vervecollege.edu/benefits-of-nursing-informatics/

https://theinformaticsnurse.com/essential -skills-needed-by-an-informatics-
nurse/
. Peterson, H. & Gerden-Jelger, U. (Eds.) (1988). Preparing Nurses for Using Information

Systems: Recommended Informatics Competencies. New York: National League for

Nursing

. Staggers, N., Gassert, C., & Curran, C. (2001). Informatics competencies for nurses at
four

levels of practice. The Journal of Nursing Education, 40(7), 303-16