Posted: March 28th, 2021

Information Systems in Nursing

Information Systems in Nursing
We are living in an era when advancements in information technology have affected all parts of human life. The delivery of health care has not been an exception as it too has experienced significant changes as a result to these advancements. Notably information systems in nursing are part of healthcare information system that specifically deals with issues to do with taking care of patients and their families. There are three main approaches that are popularly used when designing such systems. These are namely; departmental approach, centralized approach and distributed approach. Notably, the main purpose of such systems is to manage nursing records. It has been observed that the process of caring for the patients normally produces a large amount of data which can be challenging to manage and maintain. Information systems in nursing therefore help in ensuring that nursing information is accessible when it is needed at the place that is required.
A key function of information systems in nursing is care planning. In other words, such a system should be able to make the process of planning how to deliver care to patients and their families not only easy but also effective. Gong in line with this, some of the key items that should be highlighted in such a system include but not necessarily limited to: retrospective and prospective workload assessment of nurses, evaluation of the care given, managing nursing clinical records, managing and coordinating various personnel involved in delivering of care to patients and their families, managing the costs and coming up with a budget for the nursing department. The goal of such a system should be to make delivering nursing services to those who need them to be not only effective but also efficient. Efficiency is all about minimizing wastage and maximizing on output.
In majority of hospitals information systems in nursing are important as they make it possible for nursing data to be entered at one place and be available to other systems where it might be needed. This therefore saves time that is needed to make copies of such data and distribute them to various departments where they are required. Such systems therefore make administration or patients, ordering wards and keeping track of stock and analyzing satisfaction of patients to be quite easy. If you would like any clarification or more information on information systems in nursing then you should be sure to contact us. We have registered nurses who are always more than willing to respond to any of our clients’ queries.