Nurse Leaders Create Structural Empowerment for the Electronic Age

Abstract

(41st Biennial Convention) Purpose: Global efforts are underway to implement health information technology (HIT) to enhance patient safety and improve patient care quality. The purpose of this presentation is to share how nurse leaders at a large teaching hospital are addressing the transition to HIT, a transition that presents unprecedented opportunity and challenge.� Methods: HIT can make vital contributions toward patient safety; it also has inherent risk. Nurse leadership in the selection, design, testing, implementation, and evaluation of HIT minimizes this risk and ensures high quality patient outcomes. A robust clinical informatics infrastructure was created to provide structural empowerment. This structure operates within an evidence-based practice framework that provides centralized support for local adaptation of HIT. The program consists of centrally-based clinical nurse leaders, under the strategic and tactical direction of the Chief Nursing Information Officer. These central nurse leaders promote and support the development of informatics expertise in bedside nurse leaders, who, in turn, diffuse best practices at the local level. Results: The clinical informatics infrastructure enables nurse leaders to develop a collaborative relationship with IT and medical staff and to provide a strong nursing leadership presence in interdisciplinary and interdepartmental informatics initiatives. Outcomes include: increased engagement of bedside nurses in IT design, testing, and implementation; increased learner satisfaction with training and self-confidence in IT use; and standardization of nursing processes across departments. Conclusion: The latest in a series of groundbreaking Institute of Medicine (IOM) reports calls for the expansion of nurse leadership in collaborative improvement efforts and diffusion of successful practices and underscores the importance of evidence-based practice (IOM, 2011). A centrally supported model of local adaptation assures structural empowerment of nurses in the evolving transition to HIT. Institute of Medicine. The Future of Nursing. Leading Change, Advancing Health. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2011.