Implementing Tap-to-Witness Technology in the Electronic Medical Record.

The implementation of an organisation-wide EMR system in 2019 included single sign-on technology for nurses and midwives. This first-in-Australia study extended the use of this technology to enable nurses and midwives to tap-to-witness for high-risk medications, blood and blood products, and expressed breast milk. A saving of 7 seconds per interaction was observed with nurses and midwives reporting appreciation for ongoing EMR enhancement to reduce EMR-related documentation burden.

Validation and prioritisation of health informatics competencies for Australian nursing and midwifery leaders: A modified Delphi study.

BACKGROUND: Health informatics competency standards for nurses are required to ensure the use and management of health information technologies contributes to the delivery and management of safe, quality care delivery. Historically, these competencies have been identified for nurses as a general group and specifically for undergraduate nursing students but not to the same extent for nurse leaders. AIM: The aim of this study was to validate and prioritise health informatics competencies for Australian nurse leaders. METHOD: This study utilised a modified Delphi technique to validate and prioritise 26 health informatics competencies for the Australian setting. The competencies were previously developed for Canadian nurses through literature review and consulation with experts. This modified Delphi study included invitations to 20 Australian Chief Nursing Information Officers who were then asked to extend the invitation to nurse leaders in their corresponding organisations. RESULTS: Eleven Chief Nursing Information Officers and seven Nurse Leaders completed the study including 3 rounds of informatics competencies consensus surveys. As a result, 22 revised competency statements were agreed to by the study participants. The top priority competency (Nursing and Midwifery leaders support clinicians to adopt and use information and communication technologies that support safe, quality care delivery) was also the highest ranked in the Canadian team's initial work. This reflects a common objective of nurses' need to ensure technology is fit for purpose, not only for nurses and midwives, but for patient safety and quality of care. CONCLUSION: Knowledge is required in the digital health landscape in order for nursing leaders to increase their capability in decision-making in the current and future digital healthcare environments. Differences in the competencies validated and prioritised by Australian nurse leaders and previous work by Canadian nurse leaders support the need to examine context-specific factors for nurse leaders to utilise these competencies.

Pilot study of remote telemonitoring in COPD.

BACKGROUND: Remote in-home monitoring (RM) of symptoms and physiological variables may allow early detection and treatment of exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). It is unclear whether RM improves patient outcomes or healthcare resource utilization. This study determined whether RM is feasible in patients with COPD and if RM reduces hospital admissions or length of stay (LOS) or improves health-related quality of life (HRQOL). SUBJECTS AND METHODS: Forty-four patients were randomized to standard best practice care (SBP) (n=22) or SBP+RM (n=22). RM involved daily recording of physiological variables, symptoms, and medication usage. RESULTS: There were no differences (mean±SD, SBP versus SBP+RM) in age (68±8 versus 70±9 years), gender (male:female 10:12 in both groups), or previous computer familiarity (59% versus 50%) between groups. The SBP group had a lower forced expiratory volume in 1 s (0.66±0.24 versus 0.91±0.34 L, p<0.01) and more current smokers (six versus none, p<0.05). There were no differences in number of COPD-related admissions/year (1.5±1.8 versus 1.3±1.7, p=0.76), COPD-related LOS days/year (15.6±19.4 versus 11.4±19.6, p=0.66), total admissions/year (2.2±2.1 versus 2.0±2.3, p=0.86), total LOS days/year (22.1±29.9 versus 21.6±30.4, p=0.88), or HRQOL between the two groups. CONCLUSIONS: The addition of RM to SBP was feasible but did not reduce healthcare utilization or improve quality of life in this group of patients already receiving comprehensive respiratory care.

Development of Nursing Workflows and Device Requirement Principles with the Implementation of an Electronic Medical Record System.

The past decade has seen the implementation of electronic medical record (EMR) systems being implemented across large-scale healthcare organisations throughout Australia. A first-time implementation of an organisational-wide EMR system required a multi-modal approach to the development of new nursing workflows and appropriate selection of hardware devices to ensure acceptance and adoption of the EMR. The aim of this work was to develop new nursing workflows and associated device requirement principles to allow for continuation of safe, high quality nursing care with an EMR implementation. The incorporation of multi-disciplinary consultations, an audit, observational study and clinical and governance stakeholder engagement was used to develop device requirement principles. This ensured development of standardised nursing workflows were successfully adopted throughout the organisation with the EMR implementation.

Operationalising the National Nursing Informatics Position Statement.

The need for nurses and midwives to drive the digital transformation of care has been recognised as an important factor in future health care innovation. An Australian Chief Nursing Informatics Officers collaboration is leading the way. They were supported by the three professional organisations who collaboratively developed a National Nursing Informatics position statement. This paper describes the development and use of the elements described in the statement in operationalising Nursing informatics within individual healthcare organisations and for driving national digital transformation initiatives.

Centro de Informatica en Salud: una propuesta actual / Computer Center for Health: a proposal today

Se da a conocer una propuesta de modelamiento de un Centro de Informática en Salud de una Institución de Educación Superior privada en Chile. Se discuten las características de un centro de excelencia y se expone el modelo de procesos integrado para la empresa con que se diseña la propuesta de este Centro de Informática en Salud (CIS).

This paper reports the modeling of a Health Informatics Center of Private Higher Educational Institution in Chile. We discuss the characteristics of an excellence center and are disclosed integrated process model for the business that designed the proposal of the Health Informatics Centre (CIS).