Nursing Assignment 10: Data-Based Changes in Healthcare Practices

This nursing assignment analyzes the application of big data and data mining in healthcare, emphasizing its potential to reveal trends and patterns. It explores the concept of business continuity planning, outlining the stages of preparedness, activation, and reconstitution, and recommends a preparedness program for a healthcare organization. The assignment also discusses the benefits and challenges of health informatics in healthcare education, including the use of electronic health records and its impact on nursing students and the general public. The paper cites several academic sources to support its arguments, offering a comprehensive overview of data-driven changes in healthcare practices. The assignment addresses the use of technology and its influence on healthcare delivery and education.

RUNNING HEAD; NURSING ASSIGNMENT 1
Nursing Assignment
Student’s name
Institutional affiliation
Due date

Nursing assignment 2
Question 1
Big data refers to voluminous sets of large information which can be computed and
analyzed systematically to show interrelationships, trends and patterns that relate to human
interaction or behavior (Sun, & Reddy, 2013, August). Examples of big data include weather
patterns, traffic data and social media interactions. On the other hand, big data mining refers to
the act of computing, sorting and analyzing big data to reveal the patterns, trends and
interactions. Some of the ways in which big data mining is done include, clustering, path
analysis, forecasting and classification. This paper focuses on how the concept of big data and
data mining can be used in healthcare to bring about positive impacts.
There are certain distinct characteristics of big data that makes it unique from other types
of data. To begin with, the data is voluminous and it can’t fit in a single file. Secondly, the data is
not structured and appears quite messy. In addition, its possibilities have no limit and it keeps on
changing making it difficult for people to understand it (Zhang, Qiu, Tsai, Hassan, & Alamri,
2015). Due to its nature, big data cannot be examined using conventional means. This makes big
data mining not only important but also a necessity for large firms and corporations. Big data
mining is best suited as big data usually grows exponentially over time. This very characteristics
makes big data mining very important in that it identifies algorithms and trends that deviate from
the trends and use different techniques of analyzing and presentation.
According to Roski, Bo-Linn, & Andrews, (2014) big data and big data mining has
various applications to real life and most importantly in healthcare. For instance the classification
and analysis of weather patterns and responses made by human beings maybe important to
predict virus and disease outbreaks and epidemics such as dengue fever. This timely prediction
and discovery allows time for prompt action that helps to prevent or control a disease pandemic

Nursing assignment 3
in good time before it creates adverse effects. Timely prevention and control is less costly and it
therefore saves on resources.
Another good example is the monitoring of social media interactions such as posts and
comments. Most of the online interactions on social media are addressed to various people,
authorities or organizations regarding conduct, service delivery, products, policies or tastes and
preferences of the general public. Social media therefore forms a great platform for the synthesis
and extraction of public opinion. Raghupathi, & Raghupathi, (2014) argues that this information
is helpful to healthcare organizations as well as governments as they are able to receive feedback
about the services they offer or the policies they put in place as they can analyze how they are
perceived by the masses and amend accordingly.
In conclusion, it is important to highlight that big data is important to health care
providers as well as governments that seek to address health gaps as well as address health
challenges. This is because based on how people interact with the environment it is possible to
identify various aspects of health such as epidemiology, pharmacology and social determinants
of health among other factors.

Nursing assignment 4
References
Raghupathi, W., & Raghupathi, V. (2014). Big data analytics in healthcare: promise and
potential. Health information science and systems, 2(1), 3.
Roski, J., Bo-Linn, G. W., & Andrews, T. A. (2014). Creating value in health care through big
data: opportunities and policy implications. Health affairs, 33(7), 1115-1122.
Sun, J., & Reddy, C. K. (2013, August). Big data analytics for healthcare. In Proceedings of the
19th ACM SIGKDD international conference on Knowledge discovery and data
mining (pp. 1525-1525). ACM.
Zhang, Y., Qiu, M., Tsai, C. W., Hassan, M. M., & Alamri, A. (2015). Health-CPS: Healthcare
cyber-physical system assisted by cloud and big data. IEEE Systems Journal, 11(1), 88-
95.

Nursing assignment 5
Question 2
A business continuity plan refers to the practice of making preventive and recovery
systems which helps in potential threats to a company or an organization. In addition, the
business continuity plan also helps in aiding an organization’s activities during and after it is
faced with a disaster to support full running of the organization. Business continuity planning is
also known as resiliency planning whereby resiliency in this case refers to the capability to
function even in the extreme of changes in the organization’s environment. A business continuity
plan therefore helps an organization to adapt to changes such as loss, damage, interruption of
operations or accidents (Cook, 2015). This paper focuses on a manager’s role in the preparedness
and business continuity plan recommendation.
According to Hiller, Bone, & Timmins, (2015) a business continuity plan indicates
distinct stages and steps that assist a manager in planning a continuity plan for the company.
These distinct stages include; readiness and preparedness, activation and relocation, continuity
operations and reconstitution. To break it down further, a business continuity plan includes a
detailed and well researched possible threats of a certain business, numbered tasks that would
keep the organization in progress if exposed to the threats, easily accessible management contact
information, information about where workers would go in the face of a disaster and important
information on the organization’s back up in case disaster strikes.
As a manager, of a healthcare organization, the preparedness I would advocate for in the
business continuity plan is the information on disaster management. The disaster management
should be assessed in terms of workers, work equipment and infrastructure, technology,
important records, utilities and supplies. For each of these, the continuity plan would provide an
alternative in case of a disaster or at least enough capital to cover any damages caused by any

Nursing assignment 6
them. For instance, insurance against theft or risks of fire is necessary for equipment, strong
firewalls and manual data backup for the technology and important data. Strong firewalls protect
the equipment from malware and virus attack or any attempt that is deliberately geared towards
destruction of information.
According to Moore, & Bone, (2017) work insurance such as work injury benefit is also
necessary for workers to ensure that they are well covered against risks. This will enable the
organization to ensure safety of its workers as the organization will not be forced to cater for
work related accidents. Based on this, it is quite clear that recovery strategies largely involve
allocating resources or making partnership agreements with third parties and reciprocal
agreements. As the manager I would advise for the two steps to be used in simultaneously
depending on the size of the organization. The resources the organization has and the potential
risks are also important factors that I would recommend to be considered in the recovery plan.
In conclusion, besides resource allocation and third party agreements it is also important
for managers to consider other recovery strategies. Effective management and supervision is also
important part of a recovery plan. In addition, it is important that managers focus on all the four
phases of the continuity plan which include readiness and preparedness, activation and
relocation, continuity operations and reconstitution.

Nursing assignment 7
References
Cook, J. (2015). A six-stage business continuity and disaster recovery planning cycle. SAM
Advanced Management Journal, 80(3), 23.
Hiller, M., Bone, E. A., & Timmins, M. L. (2015). Healthcare system resiliency: The case for
taking disaster plans further—Part 2. Journal of business continuity & emergency
planning, 8(4), 356-375.
Moore, B., & Bone, E. A. (2017). Decision-making in crisis: Applying a healthcare triage
methodology to business continuity management. Journal of business continuity &
emergency planning, 11(1), 21-26.

Nursing assignment 8
Question 3
The world today has a fast paced technological race that has forced health education and
well as hospitals and other healthcare facilities to embrace technology in almost all their
operations. Health informatics refers to electronic computerized information, equipment and
devices that are used in the improvement of healthcare (Weaver, Delaney, Weber, & Carr, 2016).
In the recent years, there has been increased use of health informatics in training and educating
members of the public as well as nursing students. Health informatics are used in various ways
such as management, interpretation and communication of information pertaining to health
outcomes in and out of healthcare facilities. This paper focuses on the benefits and challenges of
using health informatics as well as a reflection on whether the use of health informatics is a
viable method of education in health matters.
According to Nelson, & Staggers, (2016) health informatics has brought about
tremendous impacts in the field of nursing as well as other medical fields in various ways such as
introduction of electronic health records which are safer, more accessible and less bulky.
Information has also become quick to access which has improved research as well as evidence
base to supplement practice which has facilitated increase in evidence based practice. Increased
coordination is also an important feature that has really improved the medical field as it has
increased management efficiency hence improving the quality of care in the hospital as well as
the efficiency (Jacobs, Lou, Ownby, & Caballero, 2016). These and other important
improvements has also impacted positively on the teaching and learning of nurses as well as
members of the public in similar ways.

Nursing assignment 9
McCormick, K., & Saba, V. (2015) argues that among the negative impacts include the
fact that electronic storage has increased risks of losing large importation from electronic
failures, hacking or attack by computer malware and virus. In addition, it has increased
dependency on power whereby power shortages have had grave impacts on the operations. Skill
deficits in running the technology has also been present as new technology requires advanced
skills causing workforce shortages. Lastly, health informatics if misunderstood or wrongly used
may lead to devastating results. Therefore, health informatics have heightened certain risks in the
realm of health care.
In my own opinion, however, the use of health informatics is a valuable tool for learning
both for nursing students and the members of the general public. This is so because the health
informatics enhances understanding due to multiple ways of analyzing and presenting data which
makes it easy to be understood (Jacobs, Lou, Ownby, & Caballero, 2016). In addition, health
information has made information easily accessible making it easier to learn and memorize as
information is easily accessible.
In conclusion, it is important to point out that health informatics have had great positive
contributions to health care. Despite the fact that there are several limitations, health informatics
are still important and useful in teaching as well as continues quality improvement of health care.
Among the very many advantages is providing evidence base for research which not only helps
to make evidence based conclusions but also improves accuracy of judgments made from
reading and interpretation of health equipment.

Nursing assignment 10
References
Jacobs, R. J., Lou, J. Q., Ownby, R. L., & Caballero, J. (2016). A systematic review of eHealth
interventions to improve health literacy. Health informatics journal, 22(2), 81-98.
McCormick, K., & Saba, V. (2015). Essentials of nursing informatics. McGraw-Hill Education.
Nelson, R., & Staggers, N. (2016). Health Informatics-E-Book: An Interprofessional Approach.
Elsevier Health Sciences.
Weaver, C., Delaney, C., Weber, P., & Carr, R. (2016). Nursing and informatics for the 21st
century: an international look at practice, education and EHR trends. HIMSS
Publishing.