Digital Medicine: IT Nurses Are Taking Healthcare Quality to a New Level
- May 29,2016
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In the age of digitalization, modern information technologies are rapidly entering the healthcare system, along with all other sectors.
As a result, new specialties are emerging in medicine, the quality of diagnosis and treatment, research and analysis, and professional development of specialists is increasing. Time and labor costs are decreasing.
In particular, in accordance with the relevant resolution of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan dated May 25, 2021, the position of IT operator-nurse, working on the basis of an electronic system, was introduced in family clinics and district (city) multidisciplinary Central polyclinics, regional and republican treatment and prevention institutions.
An IT operator-nurse is an innovative profession that has knowledge and skills in medicine and high-tech software, harmoniously conducting these two areas in its activities. Currently, in a situation where everything from patient admission to laboratory tests, X-ray results, treatment plan, drug orders, and observation cards is transferred to electronic form, the role of this specialist in a medical organization is very important.
IT operator nurses perform the following tasks:
work with electronic health information systems;
enter, update and monitor patient data in an electronic database;
provide technical assistance to doctors, nurses and other medical personnel in using information systems;
ensure the correct maintenance of various statistical data and reports in the electronic system;
notify specialists responsible for digitization in the event of technical failures;
comply with the rules of information security and confidentiality of personal patient data;
participate in the stable operation of the digital medical infrastructure;
master new programs and updates in the IT direction and explain them to other medical personnel.
The IT operator nurse is also an active participant in the clinical process. It is her responsibility to connect X-ray and CT (computed tomography) results to the system, notify the doctor if the analysis results are late, monitor the patient's medication regimen, and enter new diagnoses and treatment stages into the system in a timely manner.
To ensure the confidentiality of medical information about the patient, the IT operator nurse:
not to give passwords to third parties;
lock the screen when away from the computer;
provide the patient's medical information to family members only with permission;
not to distribute information on social networks;
must follow all internal instructions on confidentiality. Otherwise, not only disciplinary, but also legal liability may be incurred.
In this position, the presence of experience in computer equipment maintenance gives the nurse an advantage in determining the salary.
Studies show that after the introduction of IT-operator nurses, the effectiveness of medical personnel in using information systems, starting from digital infrastructure, has significantly increased in medical organizations. In other words, the efficiency of each medical organization has reached an average of 90 percent.
This can be seen in the fact that the technical workload of medical personnel has decreased, allowing them to spend more time working with patients, the quality of clinical decision-making has increased, the volume of paper documents, errors and duplicate data entry has decreased, and the continuity of the work process has been guaranteed.
For information: currently, more than 2,500 IT-operator nurses are working in medical institutions across the republic.
