Information Management in Hospital Unit Daily Operations: A Descriptive Study With Nurses and Physicians.

Operations management of a hospital unit is a shared activity involving nursing and medical professionals, characterized by suddenly changing situations, constant interruptions, and ad hoc decision-making. Previous studies have explored the informational needs affecting decision-making, but only limited information has been collected regarding factors affecting information management related to the daily operations of hospital units. The aim of this study was to describe the experiences of nursing and medical professionals of information management in the daily operations of hospital units. This qualitative study consists of interviews following the critical incidence technique. Twenty-six nurses and eight physicians working in operational leadership roles in hospital units were interviewed, and the data were subjected to thematic analysis. The data analysis showed that strengths of current systems were organizational operational procedures, general instruments supporting information management, and a digital operations dashboard, whereas opportunities for improvement included the information architecture, quality of information, and technology use. The study findings highlight that despite several decades of efforts to provide solutions to support information management in hospital daily operations, further measures need to be taken in developing and implementing information systems with user-centered strategies and systematic approaches to better support healthcare professionals.

Identifying nursing sensitive indicators from electronic health records in acute cardiac care-Towards intelligent automated assessment of care quality.

AIM: The aim of this study is to explore the potential of using electronic health records for assessment of nursing care quality through nursing-sensitive indicators in acute cardiac care. BACKGROUND: Nursing care quality is a multifaceted phenomenon, making a holistic assessment of it difficult. Quality assessment systems in acute cardiac care units could benefit from big data-based solutions that automatically extract and help interpret data from electronic health records. METHODS: This is a deductive descriptive study that followed the theory of value-added analysis. A random sample from electronic health records of 230 patients was analysed for selected indicators. The data included documentation in structured and free-text format. RESULTS: One thousand six hundred seventy-six expressions were extracted and divided into (1) established and (2) unestablished expressions, providing positive, neutral and negative descriptions related to care quality. CONCLUSIONS: Electronic health records provide a potential source of information for information systems to support assessment of care quality. More research is warranted to develop, test and evaluate the effectiveness of such tools in practice. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: Knowledge-based health care management would benefit from the development and implementation of advanced information systems, which use continuously generated already available real-time big data for improved data access and interpretation to better support nursing management in quality assessment.

Building Bridges for Federated Learning in Healthcare: Review on Approaches for Common Data Model Development.

Common data models provide a standardized way to represent data used in federated learning tasks. The aim of this review was to explore the development and use of common data models to harmonize electronic health record data in health research. The data search yielded 724 records, of which 19 were included for this study. None of the research focused on nursing specific topics. All studies either utilized the Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership (OMOP) common data model, or developed a model partly based on the OMOP. A roadmap to guide research for the development of common data models for federated learning are warranted.

Exploring Delays in Cardiac Care Processes Through Electronic Health Records.

Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death globally. Timely health services are fundamental to the appropriate prevention, identification, care and rehabilitation of these diseases. This study aimed to explore the potential of using electronic health records as a data source to help identify health system -related delays in care processes of cardiac patients. This retrospective registry study is based on a sample of electronic health records of 200 cardiac patients admitted to one out of twenty wellbeing services counties in Finland during the years 2021-2022. A total of 426 health system -related delays were identified. All expressions were found in unstructured format and most of these (58.7%) were generated by nurses. These results show that the electronic health records contained a variety of information on health system -related patient care delays, and that most delays were associated with difficulties in finding a bed for the patient in a post-acute care facility (49.8%), but also in-hospital process delays were common (27.7%). These findings show great potential for exploring electronic health record data with natural language processing methods in the future for the development of tools to better identify and monitor different types of delays in care processes. Such tools may support leadership to respond to organisational procedures in need of improvement.

Towards Automated Evaluation of Patient Centered Care-Assessing the Potential of Electronic Health Records.

Providing patient centered care is a crucial element of high quality care. It can be defined as a responsive way of caring for and empowering patients, embodying compassion, empathy, and responsiveness to the patient's needs. The aim of this study was to assess the potential of using EHRs as information source in the development of tools for assessing PCC. An annotation guide following the Person-centred Practice Framework proposed by McCance and McCormack was developed for the purpose of this study. Twenty patients' documents were manually annotated, resulting in 539 expressions. All dimensions of the framework were covered in the documents, with 61.3% of expressions describing the activity of engaging authentically with the patient. The results of this study indicate that electronic health records are one potential source of information in automated evaluation of patient centered care, however more information is still needed on how to interpret this information.

Health Informatics: A Challenge for Nurses in Public Health in Rural Mexico.

Health informatics has significantly advanced global technology, yet challenges persist in public health and rural nursing in Mexico due to social inequalities, limited technology access, and suboptimal infrastructure, compounded by the absence of nurse informaticians as viable career options. Overcoming these barriers necessitates international collaboration, empowering Mexican nurses to contribute to universal health access and advocate for health equity. Interventions must extend beyond nursing curricula to existing workforces, ensuring they can address the needs of vulnerable populations in Mexico. Long-term international support is crucial to bridge these gaps and unleash the full potential of Mexican nurses in influencing global health.

A rapid review on current and potential uses of large language models in nursing.

BACKGROUND: The application of large language models across commercial and consumer contexts has grown exponentially in recent years. However, a gap exists in the literature on how large language models can support nursing practice, education, and research. This study aimed to synthesize the existing literature on current and potential uses of large language models across the nursing profession. METHODS: A rapid review of the literature, guided by Cochrane rapid review methodology and PRISMA reporting standards, was conducted. An expert health librarian assisted in developing broad inclusion criteria to account for the emerging nature of literature related to large language models. Three electronic databases (i.e., PubMed, CINAHL, and Embase) were searched to identify relevant literature in August 2023. Articles that discussed the development, use, and application of large language models within nursing were included for analysis. RESULTS: The literature search identified a total of 2028 articles that met the inclusion criteria. After systematically reviewing abstracts, titles, and full texts, 30 articles were included in the final analysis. Nearly all (93 %; n = 28) of the included articles used ChatGPT as an example, and subsequently discussed the use and value of large language models in nursing education (47 %; n = 14), clinical practice (40 %; n = 12), and research (10 %; n = 3). While the most common assessment of large language models was conducted by human evaluation (26.7 %; n = 8), this analysis also identified common limitations of large language models in nursing, including lack of systematic evaluation, as well as other ethical and legal considerations. DISCUSSION: This is the first review to summarize contemporary literature on current and potential uses of large language models in nursing practice, education, and research. Although there are significant opportunities to apply large language models, the use and adoption of these models within nursing have elicited a series of challenges, such as ethical issues related to bias, misuse, and plagiarism. CONCLUSION: Given the relative novelty of large language models, ongoing efforts to develop and implement meaningful assessments, evaluations, standards, and guidelines for applying large language models in nursing are recommended to ensure appropriate, accurate, and safe use. Future research along with clinical and educational partnerships is needed to enhance understanding and application of large language models in nursing and healthcare.

Navigating the Global Landscape of Nursing Informatics Research Collaboration: A Blueprint for Success.

International collaboration is crucial in the field of nursing informatics research to enhance our ability to conduct globally relevant research that informs policy and practice. In this case study we describe how we have established an international research collaboration to evaluate nurses' experiences of technology use during the pandemic. We firstly describe how the collaboration was created and the successes associated with our work, before highlighting the facilitators to make an international collaboration work. We also discuss the challenges we have encountered during this collaborative enterprise, to enable other researchers who wish to establish international collaborations and learn from our experiences.

Future Needs in Nursing Informatics - Preliminary Findings from the Global Nursing Informatics Survey.

This study investigates the evolving landscape of nursing informatics by conducting a follow-up survey initiated by the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) Students and Emerging Professionals (SEP) Nursing Informatics (NI) group in 2015 and 2019. The participants were asked to describe what they thought should be done in their institutions and countries to advance nursing informatics in the next 5-10 years. For this paper, responses in English acquired by December 2023 were analysed using inductive content analysis. Identified needs covered a) recognition and roles, b) educational needs, c) technological needs, and d) research needs. The initial findings indicate that, despite significant progress in nursing informatics, the current needs closely mirror those identified in the 2015 survey.

Electronic Health Records as Information Source in Assessment of the Effectiveness of Delivered Care - A Pilot Study.

Effectiveness is a key element of high quality health services. The aim of this pilot study was to explore the potential of electronic health records (EHR) as an information source for assessing the effectiveness of nursing care by investigating the appearance of nursing processes in the documentation of care. Deductive and inductive content analysis were used in a manual annotation of ten patients' EHRs. The analysis resulted in the identification of 229 documented nursing processes. The results indicate that EHRs can be used in decision support systems for assessing effectiveness of nursing care, however, future work is needed to verify these findings in a larger data set and extend to other dimensions related to care quality.

Evaluating the representation of disaster hazards in SNOMED CT: gaps and opportunities.

OBJECTIVE: Climate change, an underlying risk driver of natural disasters, threatens the environmental sustainability, planetary health, and sustainable development goals. Incorporating disaster-related health impacts into electronic health records helps to comprehend their impact on populations, clinicians, and healthcare systems. This study aims to: (1) map the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction and International Science Council (UNDRR-ISC) Hazard Information Profiles to SNOMED CT International, a clinical terminology used by clinicians, to manage patients and provide healthcare services; and (2) to determine the extent of clinical terminologies available to capture disaster-related events. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Concepts related to disasters were extracted from the UNDRR-ISC's Hazard Information Profiles and mapped to a health terminology using a procedural framework for standardized clinical terminology mapping. The mapping process involved evaluating candidate matches and creating a final list of matches to determine concept coverage. RESULTS: A total of 226 disaster hazard concepts were identified to adversely impact human health. Chemical and biological disaster hazard concepts had better representation than meteorological, hydrological, extraterrestrial, geohazards, environmental, technical, and societal hazard concepts in SNOMED CT. Heatwave, drought, and geographically unique disaster hazards were not found in SNOMED CT. CONCLUSION: To enhance clinical reporting of disaster hazards and climate-sensitive health outcomes, the poorly represented and missing concepts in SNOMED CT must be included. Documenting the impacts of climate change on public health using standardized clinical terminology provides the necessary real time data to capture climate-sensitive outcomes. These data are crucial for building climate-resilient healthcare systems, enhanced public health disaster responses and workflows, tracking individual health outcomes, supporting disaster risk reduction modeling, and aiding in disaster preparedness, response, and recovery efforts.

Representation of Environmental Concepts Associated with Health Impacts in Computer Standardized Clinical Terminologies.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the representation of environmental concepts associated with health impacts in standardized clinical terminologies. METHODS: This study used a descriptive approach with methods informed by a procedural framework for standardized clinical terminology mapping. The United Nations Global Indicator Framework for the Sustainable Development Goals and Targets was used as the source document for concept extraction. The target terminologies were the Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT) and the International Classification for Nursing Practice (ICNP). Manual and automated mapping methods were utilized. The lists of candidate matches were reviewed and iterated until a final mapping match list was achieved. RESULTS: A total of 119 concepts with 133 mapping matches were added to the final SNOMED CT list. Fifty-three (39.8%) were direct matches, 37 (27.8%) were narrower than matches, 35 (26.3%) were broader than matches, and 8 (6%) had no matches. A total of 26 concepts with 27 matches were added to the final ICNP list. Eight (29.6%) were direct matches, 4 (14.8%) were narrower than, 7 (25.9%) were broader than, and 8 (29.6%) were no matches. CONCLUSION: Following this evaluation, both strengths and gaps were identified. Gaps in terminology representation included concepts related to cost expenditures, affordability, community engagement, water, air and sanitation. The inclusion of these concepts is necessary to advance the clinical reporting of these environmental and sustainability indicators. As environmental concepts encoded in standardized terminologies expand, additional insights into data and health conditions, research, education, and policy-level decision-making will be identified.

Assessment of Health Service Quality Through Electronic Health Record - A Scoping Review.

The World Health Organization defines, that high quality health services should be effective, safe, people-centered, timely, equitable, integrated, and effective. This requires systematic quality assessment. The aim of this scoping review was to explore how electronic health records (EHRs) have been used to assess quality of health services using the WHO criteria. A total of 4247 records were obtained whereof 8 studies were included in the review. Research showed that EHRs were used to evaluate safety, performance and care processes. EHRs were regarded as an applicable real-world data source, highlighting the importance of consistency and standardised terminologies. Use of EHR data is limited to its representation of the real world and current evaluation systems have limited quality criteria, diverse definitions and they use only structured data. Future research should explore possibilities of natural language processing methods and include narrative EHR information for a more a comprehensive view of service quality assessment.

Assessing the carbon footprint of digital health interventions: a scoping review.

OBJECTIVE: Integration of environmentally sustainable digital health interventions requires robust evaluation of their carbon emission life-cycle before implementation in healthcare. This scoping review surveys the evidence on available environmental assessment frameworks, methods, and tools to evaluate the carbon footprint of digital health interventions for environmentally sustainable healthcare. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Medline (Ovid), Embase (Ovid). PsycINFO (Ovid), CINAHL, Web of Science, Scopus (which indexes IEEE Xplore, Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science and ACM databases), Compendex, and Inspec databases were searched with no time or language constraints. The Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA_SCR), Joanna Briggs Scoping Review Framework, and template for intervention description and replication (TiDiER) checklist were used to structure and report the findings. RESULTS: From 3299 studies screened, data was extracted from 13 full-text studies. No standardised methods or validated tools were identified to systematically determine the environmental sustainability of a digital health intervention over its full life-cycle from conception to realisation. Most studies (n = 8) adapted publicly available carbon calculators to estimate telehealth travel-related emissions. Others adapted these tools to examine the environmental impact of electronic health records (n = 2), e-prescriptions and e-referrals (n = 1), and robotic surgery (n = 1). One study explored optimising the information system electricity consumption of telemedicine. No validated systems-based approach to evaluation and validation of digital health interventions could be identified. CONCLUSION: There is a need to develop standardised, validated methods and tools for healthcare environments to assist stakeholders to make informed decisions about reduction of carbon emissions from digital health interventions.

Artificial Intelligence -based technologies in nursing: A scoping literature review of the evidence.

BACKGROUND: Research on technologies based on artificial intelligence in healthcare has increased during the last decade, with applications showing great potential in assisting and improving care. However, introducing these technologies into nursing can raise concerns related to data bias in the context of training algorithms and potential implications for certain populations. Little evidence exists in the extant literature regarding the efficacious application of many artificial intelligence -based health technologies used in healthcare. OBJECTIVES: To synthesize currently available state-of the-art research in artificial intelligence -based technologies applied in nursing practice. DESIGN: Scoping review METHODS: PubMed, CINAHL, Web of Science and IEEE Xplore were searched for relevant articles with queries that combine names and terms related to nursing, artificial intelligence and machine learning methods. Included studies focused on developing or validating artificial intelligence -based technologies with a clear description of their impacts on nursing. We excluded non-experimental studies and research targeted at robotics, nursing management and technologies used in nursing research and education. RESULTS: A total of 7610 articles published between January 2010 and March 2021 were revealed, with 93 articles included in this review. Most studies explored the technology development (n = 55, 59.1%) and formation (testing) (n = 28, 30.1%) phases, followed by implementation (n = 9, 9.7%) and operational (n = 1, 1.1%) phases. The vast majority (73.1%) of studies provided evidence with a descriptive design (level VI) while only a small portion (4.3%) were randomised controlled trials (level II). The study aims, settings and methods were poorly described in the articles, and discussion of ethical considerations were lacking in 36.6% of studies. Additionally, one-third of papers (33.3%) were reported without the involvement of nurses. CONCLUSIONS: Contemporary research on applications of artificial intelligence -based technologies in nursing mainly cover the earlier stages of technology development, leaving scarce evidence of the impact of these technologies and implementation aspects into practice. The content of research reported is varied. Therefore, guidelines on research reporting and implementing artificial intelligence -based technologies in nursing are needed. Furthermore, integrating basic knowledge of artificial intelligence -related technologies and their applications in nursing education is imperative, and interventions to increase the inclusion of nurses throughout the technology research and development process is needed.

Will Artificial Intelligence Replace Nurses? A Debate.

Technological development has enabled Artificial Intelligence (AI) to better support health care delivery and nursing. The need for nurses to be involved and steer the development and implementation of AI in health care is recognized. A 60-minute scientific debate is organized to explore if AI will replace nursing.