Health Information

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What is Nursing Informatics?

Nursing Informatics is the integration of clinical nursing with information management and computer processes. It is a relatively new focus in health care that combines nursing skills with information technology expertise. Nurse informatics specialists manage and communicate nursing data and information to improve decision making by consumers, patients, nurses and other health care providers.

The nursing process has four main steps: planning, implementation, evaluation, and assessment. However, because information management is integrated into the nursing process and practice, some nursing communities identify a fifth step in the nursing process: documentation. Documentation and patient-centered care are the core components of the nursing process. Automated documentation is vitally important, not just for nursing, but for all patient care. Up-to-date, accurate information at each step of the nursing process is the key to safe, high quality patient-centered care. The successful implementation of information systems in nursing and health care requires the following: First, it is necessary to have well designed systems that support the nursing process within the culture of an organization. The second requirement is having the acceptance and integration of information systems into the regular workflow of the nursing process and patient care. Finally, it is important to have resources that can support the previously mentioned factors. One of the most effective and valuable resources a healthcare organization can add is a Nurse informatics specialists.

Nursing Informatics Specialists: -Nursing Informatics Specialists are expert clinicians with an extensive clinical practice background. These individuals have experience in utilizing and implementing the nursing process. These nurses have excellent analytical and critical thinking skills. They also understand the patient care delivery workflow and integration points for automated documentation. Having additional education and experience with information systems is also important for this occupation. Finally, Nursing Informaticists are excellent project managers because of the similarity between the project management process and the nursing process. To be competitive in this field one should become familiar with relational databases by taking a class about database structure. They should also become competent and comfortable with MS Office, especially Excel, Access and Visio.

Why these jobs are Important to Healthcare?

Nurse and health informatics bring a great deal of value to patients and the health care system. Some examples of how they provide value include:

• Provide Support to the nursing work processes using technology
• Increasing the accuracy and completeness of nursing documentation
• Improving the nurse’s workflow
• Automating the collection and reuse of nursing data
• Facilitating analysis of clinical data
• Providing nursing content to standardized languages

What is low back pain? Low back pain is pain and stiffness in the lower back. Some studies showed that it is one of the most common reasons people miss work.

How does it occur? Low back pain is usually caused when soft tissue like muscles and ligaments attaching a vertebra is strained. Vertebra is the back bone that protects the spinal cord inside. When these muscles or ligaments become weak or strained, the spine loses its stability, resulting in pain. Low back pain can be caused by several reasons:

1) Lifting and carrying heavy objects
2) Static positions like spending a lot of time sitting or standing in one position
3) Injury caused by a fall or by unusually strenuous exercise
4) Tension and stress that even cause headaches in some people
5) Violent sneezing or coughing
6) Overweight
7) An infection or an immune system problem
Arthritic disorders, congenital and degenerative conditions

If you find the pain is accompanied by loss of bowel or bladder control, weakness in moving your legs, or tingling or numbness or pins and needles sensation in your legs may indicate an injury to your spine and nerves. Immediate medical treatment may be required. What are the symptoms?

Symptoms include:

->pain in the back or legs

->stiffness, spasm, or limited movement

The pattern of pain could be continuous or intermittent. It may be aggravated by certain factors like certain movements or positions, coughing, sneezing, twisting, bending or straining during a bowel movement. The pain could be localized (i.e. you can point of one spot of pain) or diffused (i.e. pain would be spread to other areas).

If the pain is found below the knee, the involvement of a herniated disc or nerve impingement would be suspected.

In the following situation, be sure you seek for immediate medical advice:

1) Significant weakness in your legs: You may prone to have the problem of nerve damage.
2) Problems of bladder or bowel control: Serve injury of spinal cord is suspected.
3) Despite of treatment, your pain gets worse.

Low levels of High Density Lipids (HDLs) are commonly revered to as “good cholesterol”, and it includes a variety of conditions. They can range from mild to very severe symptoms. The definition of having low HDL cholesterol is somewhat unclear. The most widely acceptable cut off point to having low cholesterol is when a person’s HDL levels are less than 10% of their overall cholesterol score. A few things can lead to low levels of HDL such as:

-> Uncontrolled diabetes (high glucose levels)
- >Smoking
- >Obesity
- >Genes
- >Certain medications

If you are experiencing low levels of HDL cholesterol, you may be eating the wrong kinds of fat. It is important to cut all saturated fat from a diet, as well as include some good polyunsaturated fats that come from most nuts and fish oils. It is likely that your diet is also high in carbohydrates. Not having enough good cholesterol ultimately slows down the decrease of bad cholesterol. Good cholesterol is essential to helping you get rid of excessive bad cholesterol levels.

Medications can increase your HDL levels, but other medications could also be lowering your HDL levels. Check with your doctor to see if you are currently taking any prescriptions that interfere with the production of HDL cholesterol. Raising your HDL levels can prove difficult because of their relation to genetic predisposition. The most effective vitamins available to raise low HDL cholesterol levels is Niacin. A form of Vitamin B, this vitamin has powerful effects on levels of HDL and can even raise them by 25%. Taking Vitamin B can be an important part of raising your good cholesterol to an acceptable level.