Nursing Informatics: Improving Patient Safety in Acute Care Wards

This essay explores the critical role of nursing informatics in addressing patient safety concerns within healthcare, particularly in acute care settings. It highlights how the implementation of electronic health records (EHRs), coupled with comprehensive training and policy development, significantly contributes to reducing medical errors and improving patient outcomes. The essay emphasizes the importance of biostatistics in developing healthcare protocols and predicting patient health outcomes, while also underscoring the benefits of evidence-based data and educational tools accessible through nursing informatics. Furthermore, the discussion touches on the utilization of automated technologies like blood pressure cuffs and telemetry in maintaining patient safety. The conclusion reinforces that by embracing nursing informatics, nursing practice can be advanced and patient safety can be enhanced.

Running head: NURSING
Health concern
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1NURSING
Introduction- Patient safety is major health concern and encompasses safety of clients
in healthcare through the reduction, prevention, and analysis and reporting of all kinds of
medical errors that are responsible for the onset of adverse medical events (Meeks et al.,
2014). The essay will discuss the role of nursing informatics specialty in addressing this
health concern.
Discussion- The specialty of nursing informatics is well established and has gradually
evolved in the form of an integral component of delivery of healthcare services to all clients.
The target population that faces threats, in relation to patient safety is the acute care ward
where most patients receive short-term treatment for some episodes of diseases, or severe
injuries, on an urgent basis, or while they recover from surgeries (McGonigle & Mastrian,
2014). Nursing informatics is used in this field in the form of implementation of electronic
health records, training people for the use of EHRs, developing specific policies, and
analyzing the health outcomes.
EHRs help in improving patient safety by reducing bulk paper word, preventing
duplicate medical prescriptions, increasing access to previous medical history, and reducing
medical errors due to wrong drug administration. Biostatistics also facilitates the
development of protocols, besides computing the before and after health outcomes of the
patients. Hence, prediction of health outcomes, over a specified time period also ensures
maintaining patient safety (Keenan, 2014). Besides, nursing informatics also allows access to
reliable evidence-based data and educational tools, besides keeping patients safe by several
tools such as, automated blood pressure cuffs and telemetry.
Conclusion- Thus, nursing informatics is imperative in maintaining safety of patients
admitted to the acute care wards. By embracing nursing informatics, nursing practice can be
advanced and patient safety can be enhanced.

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References
Keenan, G. M. (2014). Big data in health care: An urgent mandate to change nursing
EHRs!. On-line journal of nursing informatics, 18(1).
McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. (Eds.). (2014). Nursing informatics and the foundation of
knowledge. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
Meeks, D. W., Smith, M. W., Taylor, L., Sittig, D. F., Scott, J. M., & Singh, H. (2014). An
analysis of electronic health record-related patient safety concerns. Journal of the
American Medical Informatics Association, 21(6), 1053-1059.