International priorities for research in nursing informatics for patient care

The Nursing Informatics International Research Network (NIIRN) is a group of experts who are collaborating on the development of internationally relevant research programs for nursing informatics. In this paper we outline key findings of a survey exploring international research priorities for nursing informatics. The survey was available online during May-August 2012. Respondents were asked to rate each of 20 listed research topics in terms of respondent's views of its priority for nursing informatics research. 468 completed surveys were received representing respondents from six World Health Organization regions. The two most highly ranked areas of importance for research were development of systems to provide real time feedback to nurses and assessment of the impact of HIT on nursing care and patient outcomes. The lowest ranked research topics were theory development and integrating genomic data into clinical information systems. The identification of these priorities provides a basis for future international collaborative research in the field of nursing informatics.5 page(s

Dashboards for improving patient care : review of the literature

Aim This review aimed to provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of evidence for the use of clinical and quality dashboards in health care environments. Methods A literature search was performed for the dates 1996–2012 on CINAHL, Medline, Embase, Cochrane Library, PsychInfo, Science Direct and ACM Digital Library. A citation search and a hand search of relevant papers were also conducted. Results One hundred and twenty two full text papers were retrieved of which 11 were included in the review. There was considerable heterogeneity in implementation setting, dashboard users and indicators used. There was evidence that in contexts where dashboards were easily accessible to clinicians (such as in the form of a screen saver) their use was associated with improved care processes and patient outcomes. Conclusion There is some evidence that implementing clinical and/or quality dashboards that provide immediate access to information for clinicians can improve adherence to quality guidelines and may help improve patient outcomes. However, further high quality detailed research studies need to be conducted to obtain evidence of their efficacy and establish guidelines for their design