Striking Nurses Demand Safety, Staffing

- A recent survey covering nearly 1,000 nurses across 48 states found that 81.6% have encountered some form of workplace violence in the past year. Furthermore, 45.5% of nurses reported that violence on their unit had increased over the previous year. - To transition into nursing informatics, obtaining the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) Informatics Nursing Certification (RN-BC) is a key step. Eligibility requirements typically include a bachelor's degree, two years of RN practice, and a minimum of 2,000 hours of informatics nursing practice within the last three years. - A significant source of frustration for frontline nurses is the usability of Electronic Health Records (EHRs); a survey of 75,000 nurses revealed that 40% feel their EHR has a poor response time and 61% are slowed down by the login process. Poor EHR usability has been correlated with lower performance in patient safety measures, such as flagging adverse drug interactions. - At UCHealth, an Epic EHR optimization project that focused on redesigning acute care flowsheets reduced the time each nurse spent on documentation by 18 minutes per 12-hour shift. This initiative saved the organization over 64,800 hours of nursing time annually. - The 21st Century Cures Act, and its subsequent ONC Final Rule, mandates that healthcare providers give patients electronic access to their health information at no cost, utilizing standardized APIs like HL7 FHIR to ensure interoperability. This legislation directly impacts the work of informatics teams by prioritizing seamless data exchange. - In intensive care settings, AI-driven clinical decision support systems are being implemented to improve patient outcomes. For example, Boston Children's Hospital uses an AI model to predict sepsis, which has helped reduce sepsis-related mortality. Similarly, Johns Hopkins University's TREWS (Targeted Real-time Early Warning System) for sepsis detection was shown to decrease mortality by nearly 20%. - The Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) standard is crucial for modern health IT, defining how healthcare information can be exchanged between different computer systems. It uses web-based standards and RESTful APIs to allow for real-time data sharing between EHRs, mobile apps, and other platforms, forming the backbone of current interoperability efforts. - ICU experience is highly valuable for an informatics role, as it provides a deep understanding of complex clinical workflows and data needs. This background can be leveraged by becoming a "super user" or a subject matter expert on technology projects, which provides a practical entry into the field without immediately requiring a master's degree.