As it is going into every new BSN online course, I did not know what to expect from this class. I had no idea what health care informatics even was or what it would teach me that would further my nursing career. There is always a little bit of anxiety that comes with starting a new course because you don’t know how difficult the class will be, especially when you are unsure of what the class will even be teaching you. I learned very quickly what exactly health care informatics is about, and that I knew more about this topic than I thought I did. I realized that by just simply working in a hospital setting that uses an electronic health record (EHR), I knew something about health care informatics already!
So what is health care informatics? What I know so far about health care informatics is that this topic is a combination of things. First and foremost, health care informatics deals with a person’s health and medical information. Next, this information is combined with computer technology to build what is called an electronic health record (EHR) as I discussed earlier. This EHR allows health care providers to get the most up to date information about their patient’s conditions, history, treatments, etc. This type of system also allows for safety features that help prevent charting errors in the patient’s EHR. All in all, this type of documentation and information system in health care is faster, safer, and more efficient than the past use of paper charting.
What have I learned my first week of health care informatics? Besides all of the information about what this class is actually about, I have learned how to be more technologically and computer savvy! For me this is a big step due to the fact that beyond emailing people and making my way through online classes, I have little knowledge about computers and all the different avenues they have to offer. I am officially on twitter now, which by the way, I have never had a facebook, myspace, or twitter account before, so this was a tremendous change for me! I am really enjoying having the twitter account and find that I am learning a great deal about health care topics and issues just from what people post on this site. I also have this new wordpress account which is my first blogging site. I am still trying to figure this out as well, but I find that I am enjoying this new piece of technology also!
I am very excited about what this class has to offer me and hope to learn much more than I already have just in our first week of class. This topic of health care informatics is so versatile and applicable to so many people, and I am excited about the opportunities this class will bring to us and to nursing. I hope you enjoyed my first blog and look forward to writing to you all again!
