Page 371 - Encyclopedia of Nursing Research

338 n NuRSING INFORMATION SySTeMS

Matney, 2010). Systems designed for the man- informatics into the educational process
agement of nursing units focus on the patient (Saba & McCormick, 2005). In 2007, over 100
N care services and address nursing intensity, leaders from nursing education, practice,
patient classification, acuity, decision sup- industry, and government agencies gathered
port, and patient outcomes. These systems at a summit to create an action plan to ensure
are used to track the care process during that the current and next generation of
an episode of illness as well as measure the nurses are adequately prepared to engage in
impact and outcomes of the care. “the unfolding digital era of health care.” The
In the area of nursing practice, NIS mod- Technology Informatics Guiding education
ules within CIS are used to document care Reform (TIGeR) initiative aims to enable
planning and patient care services and com- nurses to provide safe and effective care in
prise the computer-based patient record. The the emerging digital environment. One of
major applications are order entry, results the main pillars of the TIGeR vision includes
reporting, medication protocols, care plan- informing CIS design to ensure that it is evi-
ning protocols, patient education, quality dence based, interoperable, and supportive
assurance, and discharge planning systems. of nursing education and practice and fosters
The system uses the point-of-care computer quality care and safety (TIGeR, 2007).
terminals to capture direct patient care and NIS modules support the research pro-
can support the care process with decision cess. Without such systems, nursing research
support systems. Well-designed systems cannot be accomplished on large-scale data-
focus on the integration of information and bases and population groups. NIS are needed
care by all providers and can be used for dis- to process and analyze research data that only
charge planning and referral to community a computer application can perform. Nursing
health agencies and home health care ser- research applications include searching the
vices for follow-up. literature by using bibliographic retrieval
Much has been written about evi- systems containing nursing-related mate-
dence-based nursing practice (Titler, 2007). rial. Other applications include classification
However, the lack of adoption of content and systems needed to code, classify, process,
messaging standards and variable adoption and analyze nursing research data, as well
of CIS has constrained the ability of nurses to as the instruments and tools used to conduct
consistently apply evidence to practice and research: database management systems,
to build evidence from practice (Burkhart file managers, spreadsheets, and statistical
& Androwich, 2009). The design of “intel- software designed to process research data.
ligent” CIS with sound NIS modules holds Other applications, such as graphic displays,
promise for transforming nursing practice text preparation, and editors, are designed to
(Lang, 2008) through their ability to present disseminate and communicate research find-
nurses with the information needed to pro- ings and conclusions via online databases or
vide the right care for the right patient at the the Internet. Research has been conducted on
right time (McClellan, McGinnis, Nabel, & NIS modules since the 1970s. early research
Olsen, 2008). focused on stand-alone systems for docu-
In the area of nursing education, NIS mentation, care planning, scheduling, and
modules form the technology that supports the development of standardized languages
the education process, such as computer- (Ozbolt & Saba, 2008). The nursing informat-
assisted instruction, interactive video pro- ics research being conducted today builds on
grams, and Web-based courseware for the work of the past several decades, with a
synchronous or asynchronous learning. strategic focus on harmonizing the numer-
They use a wide range of educational strat- ous standards developed over the past 30
egies that enhance and integrate nursing years to support evidence-based practice,