How to use Informatics in Combating the COVID-19 Pandemic
How to use Informatics in Combating the COVID-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted every sector in the healthcare setting. It has created awareness of the significance of health data in our daily lives. Health informatics involves recording and organizing health records to improve healthcare outcomes. It is fundamental in combating the COVID-19 pandemic for numerous reasons. Firstly, health informatics technologies have facilitated mass notification (Reeves et al., 2020). Notification of the trends and patterns of COVID 19 infection is a key aspect of managing COVID-19. The existence of health informatics systems has enabled policymakers and health care practitioners to identify the trends of infection and take the necessary measures to mitigate them. The notification also allows the healthcare practitioners to mobilize adequate resources based on the predicted patterns and trends upon analysis of the notifications of the infection cases. It enables them to make a decision and adjust their infrastructure to meet the needs of the community. On the other hand, policymakers can use the electronic notification system to proposes and implement policies to curb the spread of the infection.
Secondly, health informatics have provided healthcare organizations and practitioners with innovative ways to support patients with COVID-19 infections. Various technologies such as telehealth and patient portals can enable the patients and healthcare practitioners to interact. For example, telehealth will allow healthcare practitioners to advise and treat individuals with COVID-19 even when they are not on the same roof. It enables them to reach individuals from marginalized areas or minority groups (Reeves et al., 2020). These will curb the spread of COVID-19 to other community members while also safeguarding the health and wellbeing of individual patients.
Thirdly health informatics systems have also enabled the safeguarding of the privacy of health data. Most of the technologies are designed with certain security measures that safeguard health information privacy, security, and confidentiality. This will prevent the organizations from legal and ethical liabilities.
Finally, certain health informatics technology has the capability of tracking and forecasting COVID-19 related events and outbreaks. It provides health care practitioners and patients with a platform to interact and reveal information used in contact tracing. The data collected by the health informatics system can also predict the trend of infections in a certain community. This can help federal systems and healthcare organizations to plan for measures to effectively manage the infections before it becomes an epidemic in a particular location.
Practice changes
The COVID-19 has enabled various healthcare organizations to change their practices and procedures to be able to cope. In my current practice field (Gynecology and oncology nursing), various practice changes have been implemented. The first practice change is the use of masks. Masks reduce the travel distance and the volume of expiratory droplets dispersed during breathing, coughing, sneezing, talking, or even yawning (Gugnani & Gugnani, 2020). They also filter out particles containing the COVID-19 virus from the exhaled or inhaled air, reducing infections.
The second change implemented is limiting patients’ visits to one friend or relative for the entire hospital stay. This will reduce the interaction of the patient with multiple individuals hence lowering their chance of being infected. Finally, my organization requires every patient to get a COVID-19 test before being admitted to the hospital. This will prevent the patients from infecting other patients and the healthcare practitioners. Testing will enable the identification of those patients with the infection and isolating them from the other patients.
References
Gugnani, N., & Gugnani, S. (2020). Safety protocols for dental practices in the COVID-19 era. Evidence-based dentistry, 21(2), 56-57.
Reeves, J. J., Hollandsworth, H. M., Torriani, F. J., Taplitz, R., Abeles, S., Tai-Seale, M., & Longhurst, C. A. (2020). Rapid response to COVID-19: health informatics support for outbreak management in an academic health system. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 27(6), 853-859.
