Fast Facts in Health Informatics for Nurses

"Provides a broad overview of informatics knowledge to empower nurses to be thoughtful and participate in the capture, storage, and use of data to create information and knowledge to optimize patient outcomes...In this book, you will gain an understanding of how clinical decision support tools work so you can provide feedback about [their] effectiveness and recommend additional ways decision support tools help."

--Bonnie L. Westra, Ph.D., RN, FAAN, FACMI, From the Foreword

Understanding and managing technology is a key component in providing quality patient care today. This addition to the popular Fast Facts series provides RNs and nursing students with an accessible, concise, step-by-step introduction to the essentials of informatics and its impact on patient lives. This book delivers required competencies and frameworks for both nursing education and practice, expanding upon integral systems and technologies within our healthcare system and their impact on the responsibilities of the individual nurse.

Highlighting the intricacies within a specialized approach to healthcare data, data mining, and data organization, this resource connects day-to-day informatics practices to larger initiatives and perspectives. Clear and concise synopses of healthcare essentials, case studies, and abundant practical examples help readers understand how health informatics improves patient care within the nursing scope of practice. Thought-provoking questions in each chapter facilitate in-depth considerations on chapter content.

Key Features:
• Key information about the electronic health record, telehealth, wearables, and decision-support tools
• Practical examples demonstrate how informatics improves patient care within the nurse's scope of practice
• Case studies with thought-provoking questions
• Nurses' influence on data quality
• Relevant ethical, legal, and social issues
• The intersection of technology and informatics and the power of data

Lynda R. Hardy, Ph.D., RN, FAAN, is an associate professor of clinical practice at the Ohio State University College of Nursing and affiliate faculty at the Translational Data and Analytics Institute. As the director of data science and discovery, Dr. Hardy is developing a novel approach for a data repository using a distributed, transparent, immutable, and validated system to assure data safety and security. Dr. Hardy, a previous National Institutes of Health (NIH) program officer, contributed in the NIH Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K) initiative that focused on data standardization and sharing. She further worked, within nursing, to develop a data and informatics plan to begin the consideration of common data elements in nursing. Dr. Hardy participates in national and international organizations to further the understanding of the impact of data on healthcare, directing her focus on the use of existing data to benefit healthcare and health disparities. She is a member of the American Academy of Nursing Expert Panel on Informatics, an elected member-at-large for the American Medical Informatics Association working groups on nursing informatics, and an elected member of AcademyHealth's Methods and Data Council. At the Ohio State University, she teaches health informatics and ethics at the doctoral level, provides academic advising to both DNP and Ph.D. students, mentors graduate faculty, and is an active member of the Ohio State University Institutional Review Board. Dr. Hardy has placed extended efforts on a multidisciplinary approach to education and implementation of informatics and data science to actively inform methods of improving access to comprehensive, quality, cost-effective healthcare services and achieve health equity for all Americans. Dr. Hardy's current focus also includes a multidisciplinary approach to patient outcomes through data science and visualization with a special focus on clinical and analytical approaches to opioid use.