In Light of the Affordable Care Act, Essay Example

In light of the Affordable Care Act, there is an enhanced need for adequately prepared health care practitioners. According to the authors of a recent journal article, the DNP nurse is expected to serve as a leader with regards to the implementation of information systems in daily practice and quality improvement initiatives. Furthermore, DNP nurses are held to a standard of excellence that requires them to gain an understanding of these information systems and how they could be used on the level of personal practice. As a consequence, DNP nurses are expected to utilize information systems in their daily practice in order to gain an enhanced understanding of the needs of their individual patients in addition to the needs of their patient population as a whole.

According to the authors of an additional source, DNP nurses can serve as the key to “implementing more efficient and effective care delivery processes through improved HIT integration and understanding of informatics principles, analytical techniques” (Shuffitt & Effken, 2012). This is an important understanding because while this technology appears to be new, it is this generation of nurses and health care professionals that will be the most able to understand the applications of modern information systems in addition to how they could be improved. Therefore, it is expected that DNP nurses will work closely with researchers and information technology professionals to ensure that necessary technological applications will be made. Since DNP nurses have a comprehensive understanding of the specific type of data that needs to be tracked in addition to how this could be made effective, it is likely that the kinds of information systems that are currently used in medicine will be somewhat outdated in the future. If we are able to ensure that technology is able to evolve in a manner that meets the changing needs of patients and health care staff, we are likely to achieve progress through these means.

References

Lathrop, B. & Hodnicki, D.R. (2014). The Affordable Care Act: Primary Care and the Doctor of Nursing Practice Nurse. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 19(2).

Shuffitt, J. & Effken, J. (2012). Threading Informatics throughout Doctor of Nursing Practice DNP) Curricula. Online Journal of Nursing Informatics (OJNI), 16 (2).