Administrative functions include nurse financial resources, payroll, patient acuity, risk management, coding and scheduling functions to name a few. It is critical that nurse administrators become astute informaticists to ensure efficient and effective care for their staff and patients. Imagine yourself in the role of a nurse manager who is responsible for 50 nursing staff.
What information management systems and tools would you need to be able to perform the duties of managing the administrative functions of your unit? The National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators is an example of a database that collects nurse-sensitive indicators and patient outcomes at the same point in time. This allows analysts and decision-makers to place the results in context. In other words, did that patient fall occur when the staffing levels were low?
