Informatics competencies: ONC Programs
Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) sponsored four programs using American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds. These four programs were:
- Curriculum Development Centers
- Community College Consortia to Educate Health Information Technology Professionals (Community College Consortia, n.d.)
- Program of Assistance for University-Based Training
- Competency Examination Program (HealthIT.gov, 2014)
The purpose of the Curriculum Development Centers Program was to fund and make resources available for curriculum building in higher education institutions.
Informatics Competencies: Professional Organizations
Technology Informatics Guiding Education Reform (TIGER) Initiative
- All practicing nurses need informatics skills in today’s health care due to technology use
- Basic computer competencies
- Information Literacy
- Information management (Includes EHR use). (Scope & Standards, p. 38)
Informatics competency framework by Staggers, Gassert, and Curran
- Described informatics competencies at four levels of practice: beginning, experiences, INS, and informatics innovator.
- Identified specific competencies for specialty roles of INS and informatics innovator
- Facilitated inclusion of informatics competencies into nursing education curricula. (Scope & Standards, p. 39)
ANA Competency levels
- Entry level
- Experienced nurse
- The informatics nurse
- “Proficiency with informatics applications to support all areas of nursing practice including quality improvement activities, research, project management, system design, development, analysis, implementation, support, maintenance, and evaluation
- Fiscal management
- Integration of multidisciplinary language/standards of practice
- Skills in critical thinking, data management and processing, decision making, and system development, and computer skills
- Identification and provision of data for decision making” (Hebda, p.13)
- Informatics nurse specialist
- Graduate-level and can conduct informatics research and add information to the field (Scope & Standards; Hebda, p.13)
Informatics Competencies: Professional Organizations
National League for Nursing (NLN), American Association of Colleges of Nurses (AACN), and the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) identified need for informatics development at all levels of nursing education. (Scope & Standards, p. 37)
Informatics Competencies: Professional Organizations
National League for Nursing (NLN)
- All nurses need computer and information literacy
- Computer literacy - Knowing computer and software basics (like Word processing, spreadsheets)
- Information literacy - Knowing when more information is needed, and knowing how to find and evaluate the needed information
Informatics Competencies: Professional Organizations
American Association of Colleges of Nurses (AACN)
- Established competencies at each education level of nursing
- MSN should be able to analyze, manage, and use data to improve/coordinate EBP
Informatics Competencies: Professional Organizations
Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN)
- Patient-centered care
- Teamwork and collaboration
- EBP
- Quality Improvement
- Safety
- Informatics (Hebda, p.11)
Nursing Informatics
“Nursing informatics (NI) is the specialty that integrates nursing science with multiple information and analytical sciences* to identify, define, manage, and communicate data, information, knowledge, and wisdom in nursing practice.” (Scope & Standards p. 1)
Information science
Studying the application and use of information and knowledge and the interaction between people, organizations, and information systems. (McGonigle & Mastrian, Glossary)
Computer science
Branch of engineering (application of science) that studies theoretical foundations of information and computation and their implementation and application in computer systems.
Study of storage/memory, conversion and transformation, and transfer or transmission of information in machines (computers) through both algorithms and practical implementation problems. (McGonigle & Mastrian, Glossary)
Workflow Tools: Swim Lanes
- Uses categories such as functional workgroups and roles to visually depict groups of work and to indicate who performs the work.
- The resulting map shows how workflow and data transition to clinicians, and can demonstrate areas of potential process and informational breakdowns.
Workflow Tools: Value-Stream Mapping
A method of improvement that allows an entire process to be visualized. It represents the flow of both materials and information in an attempt to improve a process by finding sources of waste. The technique identifies all actions necessary to bring a product or service to customers.
- Helps with introspection (understanding your business better), as well as analysis and process improvement.
- Uses:
- When reducing waste in a process
- When there is limited time for documenting a process and identifying problems
- When seeking areas for future improvement
- When searching for a process’s bottleneck.
(AHRQ)
Workflow Tools: Gantt Chart
Simple graphical representation (timeline) of what needs to be done and the schedule for completing it.
Workflow Tools: Flowcharts
Flow diagram depicting workflow sequence that may include task descriptions and cognitive processes.
- Often used for task analysis
- Visualize what users must do and which functions may be distributed between user and technology
