1) Quality information is essential to the delivery of appropriate client care.

Answer question at the end of each each paragraph.

1. Quality information is essential to the delivery of appropriate client care. Data can be managed using a database application. A data warehouse is a collection of several databases that can be manipulated to provide complex data analysis. Information quality is ensured when measures to protect it are an integral part of its collection, use, storage, retrieval, and exchange. Data storage measures should provide safe, accessible storage to authorized persons through a plan that considers provider, client, and third-party payer needs; physical threats to information and media (Hebda & Czar, 2013). What are some security measures that can be put into use in a clinical setting?

2.)As you read about in the text (Hebda & Czar, 2013), computer networks are linked systems of computers. Local area networks, WANs, and the Internet are all types of computer networks. Networks may use various technologies including cabling, radio signals, client-server, and thin client. In choosing a computer system, one must consider current and future information processing needs, budget, and human factors. A hot trend in the medical field, mobile and handheld computer technology provide the promise of efficiency, improvements in the safety of care delivery, cost savings, and work redesign. Describe some mobile technology that you have seen in a clinical setting and/or in school and how does that technology aid clinical process?

3.)Informatics is the application of computer and statistical techniques for management information. So, nursing informatics is the use of information and computer technology as a tool to process information to support all areas of nursing (practice, education, administration, research). A formal definition of nursing informatics shapes job descriptions and educational preparation for informatics practice.

We will see in this course that nursing informatics is a necessity in today’s rapidly changing healthcare delivery system. We know that computer technology facilitates the collection of data for analysis, which can be used to justify the efficacy of particular interventions and improve the quality of care. How do you feel nursing informatics will aid you as a nurse in the field?

4) According to Hebda & Czar (2013), data is a collection of numbers, characters, or facts that are gathered according to some perceived need or analysis and possibly for action at a later point in time. Since data can have little meaning alone, a collection of data can be examined for patterns and structure that can be interpreted. And it is at this point that data become information. Subsequently, knowledge is the synthesis of information derived from several sources to produce a single concept or idea.

Since in healthcare delivery systems are knowledge-intensive settings with nurses as the largest group of knowledge workers within those systems, what kind of information technology tools offer support to nurses and other healthcare workers in their knowledge work?

5.) As you are learning from our text (Hebda & Czar, 2013), computers are machines that process data under the direction of a program, or stored sequence of instructions. You see examples of computing technology in any retail store or online: PCs or desktop systems; laptop or notebook computers; tablet computers; and handheld devices such as Smart Phones such as the BlackBerry (RIM), iPhone (iOS), Windows Phone (Windows operating system) and Samsung Galaxy (Android operating system) line of phones. What we call “peripheral” items, such as the keyboard, mouse, monitor, modem, and printer, help you type, choose and read output, and also communicate with other users. In thinking about “SmartPhones”, what application of its technology do you see possible in the medical field in your opinion?

6.) Electronic data interchange standards provide timely access to providers at distant sites

and computer systems. Data cleansing uses software to improve the quality of data to ensure that it is suitable for all purposes including data mining and warehousing. Data mining uses software to look for hidden patterns and relationships in large groups of data such as performance information and successful treatments for specific diseases. It allows users to sort and compare data in many different ways to discover relationships. Knowledge discovery in databases uses data mining to derive knowledge from trends and patterns discovered in data mining (Hebda & Czar, 2013). 

 How is knowledge discovery used to derive knowledge from trends and patterns discovered in mining data

Reference:

Hebda, T., & Czar, P. (2013). Handbook of informatics for nurses & healthcare professionals (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.