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The Future of Healthcare Informatics

            The healthcare system has relied on technology in service dissemination and quality patient care provision. Health informatics systems have led to proper patient information management, improved diagnostic accuracy, optimized clinical outcomes, and provided simulation features aiding clinical practice, enhancing staff education within a healthcare facility. According to Iyengar et al. (2018), the digitalization of the healthcare system was one of the greatest innovations ever made to reduce clinical errors and improve patient safety. The healthcare systems conform with the advancements in the technological world, which has improved the usability of technology in making medical decisions. Technological advancements promise a brighter future to healthcare service provision and more intelligent healthcare. This paper focuses on the positive impacts of technology and the future of healthcare informatics in service provision, monitoring patient satisfaction and making evidence-based medical decisions.

Current Role of the Informatics Nurse

            Informatics nurses play a vital role in providing patient-based care, which results in the overall productivity of the healthcare system. The healthcare system has conceived strategies to assess the competency of nurses to perform specific tasks and roles relating to the approach adopted by the hospital administration. According to Strudwick et al. (2019), nurses in leadership positions with financial and human resource capabilities can influence how technology is selected, implemented and put in operation. According to the American Nurses Association, an informatics nurse is responsible for knowledge diffusion into the clinical space through tech-based data to inform critical decision-making processes. Extensively, informatics nurses engage in research, assessment and evaluation, monitoring process, administration, policy development and other roles to optimize patient safety.

            Moreover, informatics nurses conceptualize a practical framework for implementing a clinical information system. They conduct necessary assessments and evaluations to identify strategies that fit the healthcare environment's needs. Additionally, they scrutinize the system in use and determine if it expresses user-friendly interfaces both to patients and nurses. Informatics nurses are also tasked with analyzing data in the electronic health records to identify recurrent patterns and determine the best course of action based on empirical findings. In order to realize optimum functionality of the systems, informatics nurses are tasked with the duty of training their contemporaries on how to use the systems effectively. Finally, they are involved in formulating policies defining the use of technology within the hospital environment and ensuring full compliance from the employees.

Future Role of Informatics Nurse

            The current success evident in nursing informatics supports a promising future in its adoption in the nursing practice. Future advancements in nursing informatics will centrifuge around automated patient care, optimum operationalization of digital machines in the healthcare environment, simplified data collection mechanisms, data tracking and real-time access to patient information at any time from any point. With the increased connectivity and improvements in knowledge sharing techniques between hospitals, nurses will be required to oversee these activities to ensure privacy to patient information is upheld. Informatics nurses will also be required to take advantage of the improvement of technology to advance medical research. Medical technology focuses on the possibilities of delivering healthcare services virtually. The role of the healthcare nurse will be to oversee data aggregation from multiple sources and authorize real-time knowledge to inform individualized care. Advancement in technology use in the healthcare sector will necessitate nurses to monitor tools used, providing support and aid in remote care provision.

Connected Health

            World societies are faced with overwhelming health and social care challenges. This is due to the increasing disease burden inflicted on society by current health complications that result from poor living conditions, unhealthy lifestyles and other social determinants of disease. Consequently, this has led to systematic research on managing health and social healthcare. The digitalization of the healthcare system has developed innovations that have improved healthcare and established fundamental phenomena of technological applications such as connected health. According to Chouyarda et al. (2019), connect health refers to a conceptual model for health management and care delivery that leverages technology for providing care services remotely. Connected health incorporates telehealth programs, remote care such as home-based care with virtual assistance, and consumer wellness by promoting connectivity between patient data, information, and decisions. Connected health also provides intrinsic solutions that aid software developers in determining deficient healthcare requirements and fulfilling them. Some examples of connected health include decentralized clinical trials (DCTs), telehealth, remote patient monitoring (RPM), and mobile personal emergency response system (mPERS).

Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM)

Remote patient monitoring is a method of dispensing healthcare services by incorporating the most recent technological advancements to acquire patient information outside healthcare settings and provide home-based patient care. This technology helps bridge the gap between the physical setting of healthcare and convenient places the patients prefer to receive care. The RPM has led to many benefits from improved patient care, advanced healthcare delivery mechanisms to several patients with a low workforce, and an improved educative support system in the healthcare sector. One major setback to this approach is that it is unavailable to everyone. Besides, both patients and doctors have developed sceptical feelings about the workability of this method.

Decentralized Clinical Trials (DCTs)

            Decentralized clinical trials are subjective to a patient-centred approach which focuses on meeting cumulative patient needs that are not always met in traditional clinical settings. DCTs are conducted remotely or within a healthcare facility to promote patients' experience. DCTs works best in amalgamating in-person and remote activities to optimize clinical outcomes and improve the quality of care offered to clients. One of the most significant advantages of implementing DCTs is that it has reduced the amount of time inefficiency and logistic costs associated with in-person visits, which enhanced complete patient access, especially in underserved communities. However, decentralized clinical trials exhibit complications to trial procedures and require adequate resource allocation to realize benefits.

Mobile Personal Emergency Response System (mPERS)

            The success of medical technology increases significantly with time in the aid to accommodate solutions to all facets and factors of life. The introduction of mPERS in the medical systems has promoted the mobility of healthcare services and improved the effectiveness of existing emergency response strategies. mPERs is a system application that allows emergency response calls through a pushbutton device or a call centre service. This system application is shared among the older population since it is less intrusive and straightforward. This system has neutralized emergency mortality rates since it notifies healthcare personnel to enact emergency response care. However, the mPERS does not provide real-time updates of the patient's state and remains inactive until an emergency.

Impacts of Informatics on Public Health

            Healthcare informatics has had significant positive impacts in meeting public health goals and promoted effective health surveillance in different societies. Reliable, authentic and accurate public health technology is vital for monitoring and evaluating the delivery of public healthcare (Ye, 2020). Health informatics has contributed in realizing the mission of public health that aims at disease awareness, prevention and health promotion by integrating technological solutions to promote environmental health programs and achieve public health goals more efficiently and effectively. Various social platforms such as Facebook and YouTube have acted as avenues for presenting disease information to the public since many people can access information shared on social media. Healthcare informatics promotes the availability of information about diseases, care needed, prevention measures, and patients can share the experiences on their encounters, which may significantly reduce the burden of illness in global societies.

            Adopting the Environmental Health Specialist Network Information System (EHSNIS) has led to achieving environmental public health goals such as disaster preparedness and control. EHSNIS influences data collection to gather information about disaster occurrence and other specific dimensions of environmental health through surveillance and evaluation-based survey. This benefits the public health docket by availing easy, instant, rapid access to ecological data. It also helps mitigate and eliminate gaps in the environmental data. Environmental data analysis will inform evidence-based decision-making, hence determining the best course of action when present with environmental health concerns and complexities.

            Aspects of health informatics such as telehealth, big data, and connected health have improved patient quality-of-care delivery—this improved access to medical information, which aids in comprehending epidemiological patterns. Moreover, big data technology also provides current information that can help conduct clinical studies, clinical trials, and research. Healthcare informatics also led to developing an effective emergency response system to improve communications between the healthcare providers, patients, and the community. These aspects have also aided in conducting online education to every population about mitigation measures in case of a calamity, which improves disease preparedness.

Conclusion

            In conclusion, the ultimate goal of introducing healthcare informatics was to transform healthcare for the best. Fundamental aspects of healthcare informatics such as machine learning, big data and artificial intelligence can increase the delivery of healthcare services even in the near future. Despite the challenges associated with the digitalization of healthcare, the advantages of these systems are way significant. The delivery of optimum healthcare services is proportional to the technological advancements to counter health-related complications.

References

Chouvarda, I., Maramis, C., Livitckaia, K., Trajkovik, V., Burmaoglu, S., Belani, H., ... & Lewandowski, R. (2019). Connected Health Services: Framework for an Impact Assessment. Journal of medical Internet research, 21(9), e14005.10.2196/14005

Iyengar, A., Kundu, A., & Pallis, G. (2018). Healthcare informatics and privacy. IEEE Internet Computing, 22(2), 29-31.10.1109/MIC.2018.022021660

Pramanik, M. I., Lau, R. Y., Azad, M. A. K., Hossain, M. S., Chowdhury, M. K. H., & Karmaker, B. K. (2020). Healthcare informatics and analytics in big data. Expert Systems with Applications, 152, 113388.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2020.113388

Strudwick, G., Nagle, L., Kassam, I., Pahwa, M., & Sequeira, L. (2019). Informatics competencies for nurse leaders: a scoping review. JONA: The Journal of Nursing Administration, 49(6), 323-330.

Ye, J. (2020). The role of health technology and informatics in a global public health emergency: practices and implications from the COVID-19 pandemic. JMIR medical informatics, 8(7), e19866. doi:10.2196/19866