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What is the future of nursing informatics? There are so many possibilities, I don’t know where to begin.
First I will start out with nursing schools integrating informatics. I think that online classes are wonderful, but the ones I have taken before this class don’t involve much interaction between students. I think it would be a wonderful opportunity for learning if SBU would integrate Elluminate or another web-based classroom environment into the online programs. It would be a big step, but I think the difference in learning would be amazing. All students would need to have a speaker setup on their computers. Maybe the ones who didn’t could just type in their input.
I think another big way nursing schools could integrate informatics into the curriculum would be to have all students get an e-reader and download all text needed for classes. We spend so much money on books, and e-readers are getting cheaper and cheaper each year. Think of the back pain it would save us all! To have NIC, NOC, NANDA, and all the medical surgical and pediatric texts on an e-reader would be so amazing I can hardly imagine what it would be like!
As far as nursing informatics and its’ integration into health care, we must all have an open mind. Every day, there are advancements made in robotic surgery, new ways to do patient teaching, and new ways to access information that we use to give the best care possible. There will always be something new on the horizon. We as nurses cannot become complacent. We must never be satisfied. We are on the front lines, and therefore know what we need to give the best care better than anyone out there. Correlating with IT can help implement tools that will actually be useful to us. Willingness to learn is the first step in achieving better ways to care for our patients. We must work with technology and not against it, so it can be to our advantage in the care we give.
