Nursing Informatics, a growing speciality, has significantly contributed in the improvement of patient care across Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC). It allows nurses to employ information technology into their practice, said a senior official.
The concept was introduced through the establishment of Nursing Informatics in HMC by the year 2006.
“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,” Dr Wasmiya Dalhem, Executive Director of Nursing Informatics Department (NID) at HMC, told The Peninsula.
“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.
Dr Wasmiya Dalhem. Pic: Abdul Basit/The Peninsula
“Our department is committed to empowering HMC nurses and enhancing their skills. We have provided E-Learning Training Courses, CIS courses and IT Courses to fully equip the nurses for their CIS journey,” continued Dr Wasmiya.
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 work on empowering nurses to implement best practices and deliver the highest quality of patient care.
The program was developed in collaboration with Hamad Ben 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 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,” said Dr Wasmiya.
