HCS483 Health Care : Nursing Informatics Competencies
Lifelong learning and continuing education to advance skills and enhance competencies are hallmarks of professional practice. This has never been truer than today in our era of information technology and information management. In order to have a voice in the decisions made in your setting, nurses must have strong knowledge, skills, and attitudes related to informatics.
The "TIGER-based Assessment of Nursing Informatics Competencies (TANIC©) survey" consists of three main areas where you will analyze your skills in computer competencies: The first is basic computer competencies, the second area is information literacy competencies and the third and final area is information management competencies).
For this Assignment:
Complete the “TIGER-based Assessment of Nursing Informatics Competencies (TANIC©) survey” provided in this week’s Resources. Be sure to complete the TANIC survey by Day 3 of this week.
Reflect on the answers you provided within your survey.
Consider how you could improve your skills in these areas, and identify resources within your organization as well as external resources that could be used to develop nursing informatics competencies.
Find one scholarly resource to inform your self-evaluation and/or plan.
Use the Self-Assessment Paper template from this week’s Resources. No abstract or reference list is required for the AWE Checklist.
Provide a brief overview of the TANIC © tool, and your strengths and weaknesses as outlined in your self-assessment.
Choose at least one skill that is pertinent to your current position or future goals in which you need to strengthen your abilities for each of the three main areas (basic computer competencies, information literacy competencies, and information management competencies).
Outline a brief plan for developing these competencies. In your plan, identify resources that can assist and are available to you within your organization or one with which you are familiar. Identify any external resources, and explain how these resources are relevant to your current practice and/or future goals.
Analyze how developing nursing informatics competencies contributes to your effectiveness as a nurse.
Answer:
Introduction
Over the past few decades, numerous groups and theorists have come up with the proposal of competencies as well as literary skills that are essential for the nurses including the ones in practice and the upcoming ones. This report gives a brief overview of the online tool known as TANIC tool as well as point out the strengths and weaknesses pointed out in the self-assessment. The report concludes with analyzing how developing the nursing informatics competencies contributes to one’s effectiveness as a nurse.
Discussion
A brief overview of the TANIC tool
style="text-align: justify;">Tiger initiative came into existence in the year 2006, as an effort to prepare with dedication, the neutral workforce making them capable of using the information technology and the nursing informatics in order to enhance and improve the healthcare deliverance (Lim & Pajarillo, 2016). The Tiger based Assessment of the Nursing Informatics Competencies (TANIC) tool was monitored and operated by the members of the online discussion forum of the Nursing Informatics. This online assessment tool addresses three areas of nursing information competencies including the basic computer related skills, information literacy and the management of clinical information. This online TANIC tool has been determined as one of the most reliable, logical and usable assessment tool for the nurses.
Strengths and Weaknesses as outlined in the self-assessment
The strengths and weaknesses outlined by self-assessment with the help of the TANIC tool are as follows:
Strengths:
- Capable of successfully and appropriately start, restart and shut down the computer system.
- Can create, rename, move the folders, sub folders and files on the system as well as restore the deleted files and folders from the recycle bin or trash.
- Being able to discuss the advantages of instant messaging (IMs) and an expert in using the email services
Weaknesses
- Not an expert in describing the concept of uploading as well as downloading over the internet
- Not an expert in recognizing the examples of various social networking sites as well as unable to recognize the phishing attacks.
- Lack of expertise in capturing the clinical care related data and information as well as in various other competencies related to the information literacy.
Skill relevant to the current position that needs strengthening for the three main areas of the TANIC tool
Basic computer competencies
The skills related to this area that need to be strengthened includes gaining more knowledge on the use of the internet and other social media and networking websites including Facebook and Twitter (Sipes et al., 2016).
Information literacy competencies
The knowledge on the formatting of the reports that is set as a standard for the printing purposes need to be increased as well as need to improve communicating with others including colleagues at work place, patients and people from other departments by using electronic devices (Lafferty, 2017).
Information management competencies
Need to improve the identification of important keywords, relevant terms and the synonyms for the required information as well as get more familiar with the use of appropriate methods to access the information that available online (Yen et al., 2017).
An outline of a brief plan for developing these competencies
An outline of the brief plan in order to develop the skills under the three areas of nursing informatics competencies is as follows:
- By creating an account on the social networking sites including Facebook and Twitter to connect and socialize with more people and increase the knowledge bank by appropriately surfing the internet (Merrill, 2015).
- By appropriately using the search engines like Google and Bing to get the relevant information
External Resources
One of the resource relevant to my current practice as a nurse is the external resources page available on the website of the National Institute of the Nursing Research (Kelly et al., 2014). It contains various useful links related to the health resources of federal government, nursing organizations as well as other related institutes sites from where I can collect a lot of information and learn more.
Analysis of nursing informatics competencies
The TANIC tool helps a lot in developing the nursing informatics competencies. Thus, this tool did contribute a lot to my nursing practice by effectively improving my knowledge and overall skills. With the help of improved competencies level, I will be able to practice more efficiently in providing more safety and taking better care of the patients.
Conclusion
This report highlights the importance of the online TANIC tool that helps in developing the nursing informatics competencies as well as contains information related to personal strengths and weaknesses found out in the self-assessment. Certain skills that required strengthening in the three competencies areas of the TANIC, are also highlighted in this report. Thus, this report ends with identifying the external resource relevant to nursing and states how developing the nursing informatics competencies effectively contributes to my profession as a nurse.
References
Kelly, D. M., Kutney-Lee, A., McHugh, M. D., Sloane, D. M., & Aiken, L. H. (2014). Impact of critical care nursing on 30-day mortality of mechanically ventilated older adults. Critical care medicine, 42(5), 1089.
Lafferty, P. (2014). Factors associated with information literacy competencies of the traditional baccalaureate nursing student.
Lim, F., & Pajarillo, E. J. (2016). Standardized handoff report form in clinical nursing education: An educational tool for patient safety and quality of care.
Merrill, E. B. (2015). Integrating technology into nursing education. ABNF Journal, 26(4), 72.
Sipes, C., McGonigle, D., Hunter, K. M., Hebda, T., Hill, T., & Lamblin, J. (2016, July). Operationalizing the TANIC and NICA-L3/L4 Tools to Improve Informatics Competencies. In Nursing Informatics (pp. 292-296).
Yen, P. Y., Phillips, A., Kennedy, M. K., & Collins, S. (2017). Nursing Informatics Competency Assessment for the Nurse Leader: Instrument Refinement, Validation, and Psychometric Analysis. Journal of Nursing Administration, 47(5), 271-277.
