Webinar Highlights Benefits of Nurse Informaticists as Team Leaders

A recent webinar highlights the success of White Plains Hospital, in White Plains, NY, in implementing a evidence-based interdisciplinary plan of care (IPOC) led by nurse informaticists to improve patient outcomes. Zynx Health, which acted as White Plains’ evidence-based care coordination technology partner, hosted the webinar in conjunction with Health IT Outcomes.

During the webinar, experts explained that much of IPOC’s success was due not just to technology, but also to a strong organizational culture shift within the organization toward a team-based approach. Prior to the implementation of IPOC, only nurses owned care plans. Afterward, it became clear that care plans needed to involve multidisciplinary teams, Health IT Outcomes reports.

White Plains Hospital was able to develop and implement the plans quickly. The team customized 55 IPOCs in less than three days and deployed them in under eight months. They reported a significant increase in interdisciplinary collaboration, and more meaningful documentation about patient goals.

The new IPOC also helped White Plains Hospital decrease its average Length of Stay from 4.81 days to 4.75 days. The initiative has also helped the hospital reduce both development and documentation time.

Slides from the webinar are available to view here.

Webinar Explores how Nurse Informaticists Improve Patient Outcomes

An evidence-based care plan implemented by nurse informaticists improved patient outcomes in a White Plains, New York hospital. The plan, and factors in its success, will be analyzed in an upcoming webinar.

The webinar, scheduled for May 15, 2014 at 2:00 p.m. eastern, is hosted by Zynx Health in conjunction with Health IT Outcomes. It will explore an initiative at White Plains Hospital where nursing leadership implemented evidence-based care plans and saw care plan utilization increase from 58 percent to 95 percent. User satisfaction among clinicians increased as well. Factors in the success included nurse informaticists who brought a rich history of experience as staff nurses and informaticists that helped bridge the communication gap between clinicians and informaticists, according to Health IT Outcomes.

Further information and registration for the webinar is available here.

Nursing informatics is a specialty that integrates nursing science, computer science, and information science to manage and communicate data, information, knowledge, and wisdom in nursing practice, according to the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).

Improving Health Care in Schools: Innovative Program Integrates Electronic Records To Improve Student Health

Earlier this morning, Parmeeth M.S. Atwal, blogging for the Office of The National Coordinator, published an interview with Marie DeSisto discussing her role in implementing electronic health records (EHRs) throughout District 504's public schools. Ms. DeSisto, who is Director of Nurses at Waltham Public Schools, touched on many issues that the schools in her district experienced had when implementing and meaningfully using EHRs to improve student health. This interview sheds some light on the overlooked area of school nurses utilizing health information technologies.

We greatly encourage you to read the full interview, which you can access here.

Nursing Informatics: What Devices & Apps Are Available For Nurses?

With the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Conference in full swing today, I thought it would be appropriate to focus a blogpost on the growing trends of nursing informatics. Yesterday, Angela Lewis, of advanceweb.com, detailed the many devices, apps and e-books that nurses may find extremely useful in both clinical and academic settings. Technology has continued to progress to the point that many nurses feel comfortable utilizing new 'hi-tech gear' to assist them in their decision making on a daily basis.

Click here to read the article.

Click here & here to read some blogs discussing the 'best technological products' for nurses to utilize.