Why hospitals should have Informatics Officers

When you think about a hospital, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Hospitals are often considered safe havens where people go for help when they're sick or injured. However, hospitals today are faced with many challenges in providing an enjoyable experience. With the rise of technology and consumerism, patients have been demanding more from their healthcare providers than ever before. This is why informatics professionals are critical to improving the patient experience!

Informatics professionals are critical to improving the patient experience. As data-driven professionals, informaticists can help optimize electronic health records and other technologies used by providers to make better clinical decisions in real-time.

With their focus on understanding end-user needs and improving the process with a higher degree of acceptance, informaticists are well suited to enhance the functionality and usability of health IT solutions. They can even redesign workflows to suit specific roles.

So what is an informatics professional?

Informatics professionals use data analytics and other technologies to solve healthcare problems. As Chief Medical Informatics Officer (CMIO) or Chief Nursing Informatics Officer (CNIO), for example, they lead teams that optimize EHRs, telehealth applications, patient portals—and any other technology currently being used in healthcare – so providers have all the right information at hand to support best clinical decisions quickly.

Medical informaticists, who often started as clinicians themselves, are uniquely positioned to improve the functionality and usability of healthcare IT solutions. With them bringing a clinical perspective to the table and having medical-industry experience, they have firsthand knowledge of the hardware, software, and processes.

This can be a significant advantage when designing workflows, for example. They might know the best way to deliver care in situations with an overflow of patients or how to quickly create and disseminate guidelines on the fly when they're needed most.

In addition, informaticists are experts at understanding end-user needs—even those that deal with data security—and their focus on improving the process' acceptance level aligns well with efforts to realize value from technology investments.

What does this mean for nurses?

The nursing field relies on informatics to address the needs and challenges for patient care, which is why nurses are at the forefront of this technology.

One way that informatics has changed nursing is through documentation. Nurses are more likely to input notes into electronic health records and other systems which keep a patient’s medical history up-to-date and easily accessible.

Business Intelligence (BI) Systems have found that nurses can quickly and efficiently access the information they need thanks to Electronic Health Records.

With electronic data storage, the information is available to everyone on a medical care team, including physicians and those at other healthcare centers.

Personal health records should be accessible to a person no matter where they are in the world, which is increasingly important as populations become more mobile.

Patient-centered, evidence-based practices have long been essential to nursing. The practice of informatics is now becoming a part of determining the best practices.

Data-driven professionals like chief nurse informatics officers can improve health technology to make it more usable and functional. As information collection and analysis are done, the resultant conclusions will be much more accurate at predicting how to provide optimal patient care.

With data-driven professionals like chief nurse informatics officers, the hospital can improve healthcare technologies so they're more usable and functional while also making them easier for staff to access because that means better care for patients.

In addition to all their valuable work inside the hospital, the informatics officers have a vital role in a successful EHR implementation. They will support the Solutions Provider with accurate processes to implement and serve as a bridge between technology and the users, making the process easier to adopt for the hospital staff.

Trinexus is committed to Optimize Patient Care by delivering technology solutions to the most pressing strategic ad operational health challenges - from design to implementation. You can contact us at info@trinexus.net or call us at 1-787-292-1499.