Course Objectives for Nursing Informatics

Nursing informatics according to the American Nurses Association (ANA) is an integration of nursing, computers and information sciences. The integration helps in providing better service to patients while assisting nurses and other providers to make timely and effective decisions because records are easy to access from different points. The designation of nursing informatics as specialty practice by ANA was in 1992. ANA developed a certification process that it first introduced in 1995.

Course objectives for nursing informatics

Various courses have objectives that motivate students to make a choice. These are the objectives of informatics.

1.Introducing theories of informatics

Students studying nursing informatics course begin by learning the theories behind it. Theory studies cover the human and computer interface components, ethics in nursing informatics, confidentiality, privacy, and ergonomics. The students will also study and learn about their role in patient care and the way of applying nursing informatics theory to the nursing practice.

2.Training students on applying technology to the nursing practice

Students who study nursing informatics also need to understand the way of applying technology efficiently to nursing practice. The course provides an opportunity for students to learn technologies they can use in numerous situations. The students also learn the best way to apply them for management as well as communication of various types of data and information. Students also learn the way of using data principles and documenting information appropriately within computer applications specifically designed for nursing and healthcare administration.

3.Developing competency plans

Another course objective of nursing informatics is to provide nurses with a solid background in nursing informatics theory and technological application. The trainees also gain hands-on experience in customizing professional development plans. The purpose of competency planning is to meet personal preferences matching the needs of healthcare providers while aligning the competency plan to the requirements of the patients and staff. Students can also use the knowledge from the coursework to create educational development plans for clients. This process involves exploring the use of IT to document data, network, collaborate and make universal decisions. A close collaboration helps to develop an informatics plan that meets information needs in a specific environment. This can be a case study or a real-world scenario depending on specific course requirements.

4.Enhancing patient participation

Nursing informatics students learn how to collaborate with their patients with electronic access to their health history and recommendations. Patients who can access their records feel empowered to play more roles in the patient care and take it more seriously. Learners learn how to develop and run informatics care portals that their patients can access to track symptoms and medications.

5.Improving healthcare coordination

A nursing informatics course teaches enables nurses to know of ways they can use to interact with other nurses and doctors are simpler ways which yield better outcomes. Much specialization is taking part in healthcare, and most patients are receiving care from different specialists even in one hospital stay. An increase in specialization requires more coordination and informatics provides the way forward. One patient may have a different conversation with various professionals and care might suffer due to problems that arise when decisions for failing to make decisions in tandem. Health informatics helps to facilitate the necessary coordination for implementation of instruction from different specialists.

Other course objectives for nursing informatics

Nursing informatics course also intends to provide learners with an opportunity to:

One of the essential responsibilities in knowledge-based professions is for practitioners to pass what they know to another generation. In addition to the above course objectives for nursing informatics, those who excel will teach their colleagues or become nurse educators specializing in the area of electronics documentation.