How Informatics Help Care Providers to Overcome Barriers to Care

How Informatics Help Care Providers to Overcome Barriers to Care
           Nursing informatics has contributed tremendously towards increasing patient safety and
quality of care. Given the dynamics of the healthcare industry that is ever evolving and is
categorized by robust expansion, informatics plays a critical role in countering both emergent
and prevailing barriers to quality care (Alotaibi & Federico, 2017). Health informatics utilizes
various approaches to manage such critical health information encompassing the storage and
retrieval of vital patient records. Comprehending patient records alone is critical to health
providers in providing quality health care, which comprises patient-oriented needs.
           Health informatics like Electronic Health Records (EHR) are also necessary for securing
patient information from hacking, tampering, mishandling, and natural disasters. This ultimately
gives the health care providers an easy time consistently accessing information eliminating delay
as a barrier to providing quality care. Most importantly, through health informatics, harmful
treatments are prevented as care providers can receive accurate information collection and avoid
erroneous diagnoses due to misinterpreted lab reports (Alotaibi & Federico, 2017). Informatics
also eliminates the barrier of medication errors by utilizing automated universal dispensing
systems and other bar-coded mechanisms to detect any mismatch between the medication given
and the patient's identity.
              Other elements of Health Informatics, including the Clinical Provider Order Entry
(CPOE), have been essential in improving the performance of health care and patient safety. It
ensures that clinicians generate and use clear, standardized, and comprehensive orders.
Nonetheless, it is disadvantageous in the sense that it necessitates high implementation costs,
leads to a reduction of work production, and differs from how clinicians think(Alotaibi &
Federico, 2017). Clinical Decisions Support Systems, on the other hand, supplements clinical

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experts with multiple choices and responsibilities for patient care encompassing the active
universal delivery of quality health care.

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References

Alotaibi, Y. K., & Federico, F. (2017). The impact of health information technology on patient
safety. Saudi medical journal, 38(12), 1173.