Topic for Nursing Informatics Paper

[bear94, BSN, RN]

Hello guys! So I am supposed to come to class on Tuesday with a topic that has to do with "nursing informatics." She was very vague about it, so I guess what I am asking is what do you guys think would be a good topic to cover in relation to nursing informatics? Something that has plenty of academic research done on it so I don't struggle to find references. Not sure if I am asking for too much here, but I figured I would give it a shot. No one else in my class really knows what they should be searching for as far as a topic either since the professor kind of ran out of time and didn't explain examples, so if you guys don't mind I would love to share your different ideas for topics on my class Facebook page that we all frequently communicate on. Thank you.

[ChristineN, BSN, RN]

I just finished an informatics class. Some of the topics me and my classmates covered were use of internet or videos for patient education, hand held medication scanning devices, and smart pumps. Look around your floor at work and see if you are using any informatics in your day to day.

[bear94, BSN, RN]

@ChristineN Thank you for your ideas! :)

[ikarus01]

I work in the field and this just happened to my friend....he went to the doctor for his yearly checkup and when they pulled up his medical record on the computer, it had the wrong data. It said that he had a heart attack a year ago, smoked, and other stuff. When he told the secretary that was not his record, the secretary thought she had entered the wrong patient account number. She entered it again, same record came up. Turned out that the hospital had switched the system from one vendor to another, and in the switch, data got messed up. So a topic, data errors on electronic medical records when hospitals switch from one vendor to another or just data errors on electronic medical records.

Another topic discussed all the times, medical errors and electronic charting.

Also, does electronic charting actually provide more time for nurses to spend with their patients. Back in the day, the selling point was that nurses could chart faster using electronic medical records, but I really have no idea if there are studies in the field at all, and if that claim is even true. Some systems I think are horrific and they actually slow nurses down.

And if you want to be controversial, does having a master's degree in informatics make you a better informatics nurse? Although there is probably no research done on that.

Well, those are some quick ideas.