Nursing informatics Lecture (11)

Tenets of Nursing Informatics Nursing informatics contains a unique body of knowledge, preparation, and experience, and uses identifiable techniques and methods. Nursing informatics supports the clinical and non-clinical efforts of nurses and other providers to improve the quality of care and the welfare of healthcare consumers. Information or informatics methods alone do not improve patient care; rather, this information is used by clinicians and managers to improve care, information management, and patient outcomes.

Nursing informatics collaborates with and is closely linked to other health-related informatics specialties. Although concerned with information technology, nursing informatics focuses on efficient and effective delivery of complete and accurate information in order to achieve quality outcomes.

Human factors, human–computer interaction, ergonomics, and usability concepts are interwoven throughout the practice of NI. Nursing informatics promotes established, emerging, and innovative information technologies.

The key ethical concerns of nursing informatics include advocating privacy and ensuring the confidentiality and security of healthcare data and information.

Ethics in Nursing Informatics Nursing has a long history of applying ethical principles to nursing practice, with a primary concern for the patient and a commitment to the professional code of ethics for nurses.

Ethical questions often arise when common corporate business practices conflict with the ethical mandates of healthcare professionals. The INS brings an integrated, systems perspective to discussions of ethical issues, such as:

Is a code of ethics integrated into the expanding distributed environment of electronic health information and healthcare service delivery? Is the individual responding to a healthcare related e-mail or web site inquiry appropriately licensed and qualified?

In healthcare-related electronic communication, are appropriate safeguards in place to protect the sender’s identity and privacy, the content and integrity of messages, and the respondent’s identity? The International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) has published a detailed code of ethics for health information professionals.

Among its general principles, two are of special interest to nursing informatics: information privacy and disposition, and legitimate infringement. The principle of information privacy and disposition states that all persons have a fundamental right to privacy, and hence control over the collection, storage, access, use, communication, manipulation, and disposition of data about themselves.

However, the principle of legitimate infringement states that this fundamental right is tempered by the legitimate, appropriate, and relevant data needs of a free, responsible, and democratic society, and by the equal and competing rights of other persons.

The INS encounters questions of biomedical ethics throughout systems development, implementation, and administration. For example, informatics professionals including nurse specialists must determine whether patients see all of their lab results online, perhaps before a clinician has seen them.

This decision may be less a technical question than an ethical one concerning the principle of patient autonomy. Security standards respond to the principles of autonomy and non-malfeasance. In the United States, decisions concerning the appropriate access and use of data may be guided by both HIPAA rules and the ethical principle of justice.

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