THE NURSING INFORMATICS YEAR in Review project for each of the past 4 years has searched the literature using the following criteria: "nursing informatics" and "informatics" as key words, dates of publication August 2014-August 2015, research in peer-reviewed journals, and nurse as the first author. Consistent with prior years of this project, we also invited our Nursing Informatics Work Group (NIWG) members to recommend articles that were especially influential to their work for inclusion. Our 2-phase review then presents the results according to research setting, topic, methods, funding sources, and country of authors. The results from this project are then presented at the American Medical Informatics Association-Nursing Informatics Work Group (AMIA-NIWG) fall meeting.
In project year 2013, we observed a shift in focus of nursing informatics research to education. We contributed this shift in nursing informatics research as the professional response to the push by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing and publication of the DNP and baccalaureate essentials to include informatics in all levels of nursing education.1 Since project year 2013, we have observed that the articles describing informatics and education research remain well represented, with 10 articles describing education as the research setting (project years 2014 and 2015) and 8 reporting education as the area of focus in project year 2015.
This project year (that will be presented in a forthcoming paper), we read articles that were classified as intervention studies representing a continuation of another trend in nursing informatics research. Examples of this work include reports of testing the effectiveness of an Internet pilot intervention for overweight and obese African American adults and diabetes management system and are representative of the intervention studies this project year. Joseph et al2 described the evaluation of an intervention designed to increase motivation to participate in physical activity program. Chung et al3 reported that the "Smart Care Service" (education and Web site) for diabetes management was effective in reducing blood glucose and HbA1c levels.
Nurse informatics is the driving force for transformation of health care, and our research will have tremendous impact with adoption and implementation.4 We anticipate reading articles in the upcoming project years describing nurse informatics scientists performing intervention research in organizations. This transformation of health care includes intervention research, such as those reported earlier and expanded to larger populations and settings. Intervention research in nursing informatics is not without challenges: model- or theory-guided research, generalizability of research findings, and stakeholders as research team members.
With great foresight, Bakken and Ruland5 described a model-based approach to successfully move informatics research from intervention to routine.6 The authors described the model RE-AIM (Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance framework) to assist nurse informatics researchers to address the challenges in intervention research. Here the framework will be briefly presented with ideas for involving nursing administrators and other key stakeholders in sustainable intervention informatics research.
The authors describe "Reach" as being at the individual level and serves as a research design element for external validity or generalizability checking for sample size. Here the nurse administrator can ensure that the research team has access to the study participants as necessary for recruitment and access to the technology being studied, while avoiding coercion of staff to participate. The nurse administrator can also foster the investigators' relationship with the organization's vendors should the technology require integration with current systems.
Efficacy, also at the individual level, is described as determining the impact of the intervention on measurable outcomes. The nurse administrator can facilitate this phase by supporting the partnership between the investigators and the managers of data for outcome measures from the clinical database or warehouse for the investigators.
The nurse administrator can be a very effective stakeholder toward adoption of the innovation. This is the first model element that is at the organizational level. The nurse administrator contributes by facilitating the alignment of the technology and culture of the organization and end users.5 For example, from a broad lens, the nurse administrator who embraces change sets the tone for the organizational culture and individual change agents to lead the initiative throughout the organization.
Implementation, also at the organizational or setting level, is key to the intervention's fidelity, protocol, cost, and end users' experience. The nurse administrator can assist with determining success program implementation. Finally, the intervention implementation enters maintenance. Here the nurse administrator works with the team to seek measures of long-term outcomes. The outcomes can be staff and/or patient focused.
Here the RE-AIM model was described with application to the nurse administrator. Nurse administrators are integral to the success of nurse informatics-led intervention research. As nurse informatics research steadily gravitates toward intervention studies, this model and the collaboration with nurse administrators are essential for long-term integration of research into practice.
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