University Healthcare: The Nurse Leader as a Knowledge Worker Report

This report delves into the role of the nurse leader as a knowledge worker, emphasizing the application of informatics within the healthcare setting. It begins by defining the concept of a knowledge worker, differentiating them from manual labor performers, and highlighting their reliance on intellectual capabilities to solve complex problems and innovate within their field. The report then transitions to nursing informatics, explaining its integration of nursing, information science, and computer knowledge to maintain and develop medical data systems. It underscores the importance of technologies such as electronic medical records (EMRs) and the three building blocks of nursing communication: information, data, and knowledge. The report also highlights the essential role of nurse leaders in adapting to evolving healthcare technologies and leveraging data analysis to improve patient outcomes, including the utilization of knowledge worker skills like data gathering, information use, and knowledge building. The references used in the report are also mentioned.

Running Head: THE NURSE LEADER AS A KNOWLEDGE WORKER
THE NURSE LEADER AS A KNOWLEDGE WORKER
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1THE NURSE LEADER AS A KNOWLEDGE WORKER
1. Explain the concept of a knowledge worker:-
The knowledge workers are considered to be those workers who utilizes their mind and earn
a living. They are unlike the manual labor performers who perform physical tasks. The
knowledge workers can be differentiated from other workers with using their thinking and
intellectual ability to solve the complex problems or help in developing the new services or new
range of products with respect to their field of expertise. In the book, The Landmarks of
Tomorrow (1959), the management consultant, Peter Drucker first coined the term “knowledge
worker”. With the initiation of the concept of knowledge workers, eventually the number of the
knowledge worker were seen to increase in number in every organizations (hospital or
management). This helped in achieving the mission of making the organization grow towards
forming a collaborative workplace that helps in giving more autonomy to the workers who work
in those places. A huge hike in the salaries of the knowledge workers determines the complex
nature of their work. The prime focus of the knowledge workers is to look out for the
improvement in the quality of the work that is produced. The main characteristics of a
knowledge worker mainly include the following parameters:
 Evaluation the information: identifying the important information from a large
particular database of information and applying that minimum information to
solve any problem or answer any question. They need to be analytical while
reasoning and addressing the customer service issues and new situations.
 Application of theoretical knowledge: The worker need to be well trained and
should be able to master the information that are needed to implement certain
roles.

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 The knowledge workers are in a need of continuous acknowledgement and
growth. They also need to completely updated with the technological
developments and upgradation. It is necessary for the workers to be always ready
and interested to seek new information and thereby apply them in their work. This
shall help in the development of their skills and make them more inept to handle
any complex situations.
 Communication is another of the parameter that is very important to develop the
skills as a knowledge worker. The need to communicate and interact with the
other interns or the patient can help in the improvement of the quality customer
service that is being provided
2. Define and explain nursing informatics and highlight the role of a nurse
leader as a knowledge worker.
Nursing informatics (Lee, 2014) have been developing over the past decade and have been
known to take different forms and function differentially. Nursing informatics is regarded as
the part of nursing study that incorporates nursing, information sciences and the computer
knowledge, which helps in maintain and developing the medical data storage systems (Nagle,
Sermeus, Junger & Bloomberg, 2017). This further helps in the practice of nursing as well as
help in improving the quality of care provided to the patient. The technologies that are
incorporated to develop the health and nursing informatics are electronic medical records
(EMRs) (Rojas & Seckman, 2014), progress note, nursing notes, test results, medication
charts. Nursing communication are mainly build on the three building blocks which are
information, data and knowledge. These three information are in turn store in the computer
programs and the software helps the health care providers in turn to provide the high quality

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care. The nurses usually need the informations to freely care for the patients and they need to
be able to access the medical charts and history of the patient in order to get clarity on the
patient’s medical status and aid to improve the patient care outcomes. The nurses are one of
the prime factors on which the development and the progress of the health care technology
completely depends on.
In order to reform the healthcare for improving the access, decrease in and cut down of
the healthcare costs are emphasized on for improving the quality of care that is being
provided. The main focus is on the technology and the development of the electronic systems
that are being used to register and store the data collected and are further used for analysis.
The main challenge that is posed to the nursing managers and their staff include the matching
up of the technologies to specific patients or care units. This in further helps in the
determination of the data that is used to guide the delivery of care to the patients and
ensuring of a better patient outcome. It has been observed that the nursing units are on
registering more and more data on a daily basis by ensuring the factors as such, accuracy,
reliable methods of analysis, logical findings and ultimately concludes with the said
diagnosis. The nurse managers are known to develop the knowledge worker skills with
respect to gathering of the data and analyzing them. They also help in identifying clinical
patterns. The four knowledge worker skills that are mainly utilized for delivering optimal
patient care are knowledge user, data gatherer, information user and knowledge builder. The
development and strengthening of the knowledge skills are found to be helpful to provide a
greater growth and sustainability for the hospital or the nursing home they are working in.
The nursing managers are further found to develop themselves to better understand and adapt
to evolving health care system technologies.

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References:
Hogle, L. F. (2016). Data-intensive resourcing in healthcare. BioSocieties, 11(3), 372-393.
Lee, A. (2014). The role of informatics in nursing. Nursing Made Incredibly Easy, 12(4), 55.
McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. G. (Eds.). (2015). Nursing informatics and the foundation of
knowledge. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
Nagle, L. M., Sermeus, W., Junger, A., & Bloomberg, L. S. (2017). Evolving Role of the
Nursing Informatics Specialist. Forecasting Informatics Competencies for Nurses in the
Future of Connected Health, 212.
Rojas, C. L., & Seckman, C. A. (2014). The informatics nurse specialist role in electronic health
record usability evaluation. CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing, 32(5), 214-220.
Sweeney, J. (2017). Healthcare informatics. Online Journal of Nursing Informatics, 21, 4-1.