There was palpable excitement in the air as attendees began arriving to the Veronese Ballroom at the Venetian Sands Expo Center on the morning of August 9, 2021. This was the location of the HIMSS21 Nursing Informatics Symposium in Las Vegas, Nevada, and was the first time many of the attendees had seen one another in person since HIMSS19 2 years ago. As people arrived and settled into their (socially distanced) seats, there were cheerful greetings and happy reunions throughout the room. The Symposium kicked off a highly anticipated start to HIMSS21, inspiring attendees to "Be the Change" in healthcare technology going forward.
In addition to the enlightening education sessions scheduled for the day, there were eight poster presentations for all to peruse on a variety of nursing informatics topics. The poster presenters hailed from academic, healthcare, and industry locations, and represented the informatics areas of quality/performance improvement, research/evaluation, systems analysis/design, and education/professional development.
"Tailoring Interventions in Reducing Rate of Falls in a Psychiatric Inpatient Hospital" was presented by Karissa C. Padilla, DNP, MSN, RN, RN-BC, NEA-BC, a nurse informaticist from Rutgers University. Dr Padilla's poster outlined designing a fall prevention program within the EHR utilizing TIPS, an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality patient-centered fall prevention toolkit.
Christie L. Martin, PhD(c), MN, MPH, RN, LHIT-HP, from the University of Minnesota School of Nursing presented "The Efficacy of Mobile Health Interventions Used to Manage Acute or Chronic Pain: A Systematic Review." Lisa M. Janeway, DNP, RN-BC, CPHIMS, a nurse informaticist from Northwestern Healthcare, was an additional poster author. Drs Martin and Janeway completed a systematic literature review to investigate the efficacy of pain-related mobile health applications and advocated for the continued involvement of nursing informaticists in the development and implementation of these applications.
"Hospital at Home" was presented by Tracy Irwin, RN-BC, Clinical Informatics Manager from Health First, Inc. Hailey Newkirk, RN-BC, a senior informaticist also with Health First, Inc, was an additional poster author. The Hospital at Home program, one of the first in the state of Florida, utilizes technology to mitigate social determinants of health and enable patients to receive hospital-level care in their own homes.
Karen Dunn Lopez, PhD, MPH, RN, an associate professor from the University of Iowa College of Nursing Center for Nursing Classification, presented "Unearthing Nursing Documentation Within Electronic Health Record Data to Determine the Impact of Nursing Care for Hospitalized Patients with COVID-19." Co-author of this poster was Elizabeth Swanson, PhD, RN, an associate professor emeritus also from the University of Iowa College of Nursing. Drs Lopez and Swanson presented their ongoing work around identifying and extracting standardized nursing care activities data within the EHR, specifically focusing on data related to COVID-19 nursing care.
"CE-Accredited On-Demand Telehealth Education" was presented by Kristi Slidel, MHA, BSN, who is the Director of Partnerships with the American Board of Telehealth. Co-author was Whitney Flanagen, Director of Education from the American Board of Telehealth. This poster discussed the evidence-based processes used by the American Board of Telehealth to develop standardized training for health professionals. Their results indicated 98% of the learners would recommend the course to a colleague.
Nelita Luppa, DNP, MS, BSN, RN-BC, NEA-BC, FHIMSS, Cleveland Clinic ACNO of Nursing Informatics and member of the HIMSS Nursing Informatics Workgroup, presented "Defining the Value of Nursing Informatics in your Organization: You Can't Afford Not To!" This poster described their Nursing Informatics Value Equation, demonstrating the return on investment of nursing informaticists. Dr Iuppa will be featured on an upcoming HIMSS Nursing Informatics podcast about her professional journey and experiences as an informaticist.
"A Network Initiative to Decrease Inappropriate Healthcare" was presented by Julie Tanhauser, RN, BSN, a clinical informatics nurse with St. Luke's University Health Network. This poster focused on the use of technology in care plans of the high utilizer patient, providing insight into how interdisciplinary teams can partner to reduce unnecessary procedures, hospitalizations, and readmissions.
Cory Stephens, MSN, RN-BC, CPHIMS, SHIMSS, an informatics nurse consultant from the National Institutes of Health, presented "A Universal Model for Efficient, User-Centered EHR Training." Kim Stevens, DNP, MSN, RN, Informatics Nurse Consultant Supervisor from the National Institutes of Health, was a co-author. The National Institutes of Health updated its EHR training using the Rapid Training Optimization model and demonstrated the efficacy of using a flexible program to accommodate different learning styles and user locations.