A nurse helping a patient (picture for representation purpose only)
The increasingly digitised healthcare world has driven Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) to be at the forefront of adopting technological advancement in Qatar. To date, the development of informatics in the nursing community has been valuable in keeping up with the constantly changing environment of our modern-day healthcare system.
The Nursing Informatics Department (NI) at HMC has broken new ground of nursing informatics specialisation in Qatar as well as the entire region. It shapes the framework in transforming the department into an integrated service provider which holds nurses at the centre of all operations. It serves as the foundation to support nursing staff in education and training, communication, research and operational activities.
It was pioneered by Dr Wasmiya Dalhem (pictured below), Executive Director of Nursing Informatics, through the fulfilment of her studies which earned her a Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing Informatics. The overall strategic plan focuses on nursing informatics research and professional development in healthcare informatics and information technology. It is aimed at encouraging nurses to promote the best use of clinical information and technological systems for the improvement of patient care delivery in HMC.
Dr Wasmiya Dalhem
Nursing Informatics coordinates and facilitates various activities to provide nurses in obtaining a high level of informatics knowledge and practice.
“Nursing Informatics is a growing speciality that allows nurses to employ information technology into their practice. This concept was introduced through the establishment of Nursing Informatics in HMC by the year 2006,” said Dr Dalhem.
“The strategy of the department focuses on nursing informatics researches and professional development in healthcare informatics and information technology for nurses to promote the best use of clinical information and technological systems for the improvement of patient care delivery in HMC,” she added.
“To advance nursing practice, we have been involved in the Clinical Information System (CIS) preparation, implementation and post implementation phases in all HMC facilities. Currently we are in the optimisation phase of the system. The department also led the implementation of Clairvia system across the corporation. HMC is the first hospital in the Middle East to implement this new system that manages nursing workforce and acuity-based patient assignment. This in addition to other projects initiated by the department to enhance accuracy in nursing documentation and decrease the time spent by nurses in creating and updating documentation, which ultimately improves quality of patients’ care delivery,” she added.
The Nursing Informatics Department
Nurses need to integrate information and information technology into routine practice and embrace opportunities to manage care in new ways. In order to achieve this, the Nursing Informatics Department at HMC focuses on the following:
Accessibility: Promote and facilitate access to resources and references on applied informatics.
Achievable: Achieve adoption and information exchange through the meaningful use of informatics practices.
Confidence: Inspire confidence and trust in health information technology.
Creative: In re-engineering clinical workflow and facilitate change management.
Dedicated: To improving care and reducing health care costs through the use of informatics practice.
Excellence: In delivering high quality and evidence-based service.
Informative: Spread Nursing Informatics concepts.
Knowledge: Empower nurses with informatics knowledge to improve the healthcare system in Hamad Medical Corporation.
Professionalism: Advance healthcare informatics practices, education and research through the effective use of health information and information technology.
Supportive: Support nursing work process using informatics principles and practices
The department is committed to empowering HMC nurses and enhancing their skills. Its provides E-Learning Training Courses, CIS courses and IT Courses to fully equip the nurses for their CIS journey.
In a new and important initiative to enhance patient care, the department has launched the Nursing Informatics Research Community Program. The purpose of the program is to develop a community in Qatar to work on empowering nurses to implement best practices and deliver the highest quality of patient care.
The program was developed in collaboration with Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU), Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI) and the College of Science and Engineering (CSE) along with Carnegie Mellon University-Qatar (CMU-Q).
Nursing Informatics Research Community is a suite of educational sessions and interactive research activities aiming to provide knowledge and skills in conducting researches in Health Informatics. It consists of Research Workshops across the HMC, Research Educational course and Research Award.
The workshops focus on several priority areas and were designed to expose new ideas in the field of informatics research and encourage participants to engage in future research activities. It is an important step for the Nursing Informatics Department and for the nurses who will benefit from the goals of this initiative in fulfilling HMC’s and Qatar’s vision for research and of delivering the safest and most effective care to patients.
“Over 500 nursing leaders and nurses from various specialities participated in the program. Through research, we want to encourage nurses to promote the best use of clinical information and help participants gain the expertise to lead projects within this speciality in collaboration with the Nursing Informatics team,” said Dr Dalhem.
“It is an honour for the department to gather a team of expert lecturers having a remarkable experience in health informatics and ready to share their knowledge in the field of health informatics research. Meeting with different teams helped to establish a network of nurses interested in researches and professionals outside Hamad Medical Corporation which can be a start to have an informatics community that can provide a valuable support for clinicians in Qatar” she added.
The expertise received from the local universities has been phenomenal and they include Dr Luis Fernandez-Luque (QCRI), Dr Mowafa Househ (HBKU) and Dr Daniel Phelps (Carnegie Mellon University). The Qatar National Library has provided access to their database and resources.
“We are gearing our nurses towards the future healthcare and preparing them with the competencies and skills required to practice in a future healthcare environment. New HMC facilities are on the rise; we are not only going behind the scenes but leading the roles. Most importantly, we are aiming for an international accreditation of our department and will continue with our goal of being leaders in the Nursing Informatics field,” said Dr Dalhem.
