Major Historical

Perspectives of Nursing
and Computers
 Six Time Periods
 1950s
 1960s
 1970s
 1980s
 1990s
 Post-2000
 1950s
 nursing profession was also undergoing
major changes
 Computers were initially used in health
care facilities for basic business office
functions.
 few experts attempted to adapt
computers to health care and nursing.
 1960s
 computer technology in health care
settings began to be questioned
 “Why computers?” and “What should be
computerized? “
 Progress of health informatics was slow
 1970s
 inevitable continued integration of
computers into nursing
 1980s
o field of informatics emerged
o HIS with nursing subsystem
 1990s
 computer technology became an integral
part of health care settings, nursing
practice, and the nursing profession
 Post-2000
 continued development and growth of
hardware and software
 Four Major Nursing Areas
o Nursing Practice
EHRs, HISs
o Nursing Administration
links nursing departments
Most policy and procedure manuals
are accessed and retrieved by computer
 Four Major Nursing Areas
o Nursing Education
Most universities and schools of
nursing offer computer enhanced courses,
online courses, and/or distance education
o Nursing Research
computer for analyzing nursing data
Internet provides access to the
millions
resources around the world
 Standards Initiatives
 nursing practice standards
 nursing data standards
 health care data standards
 Nursing practice standards
 ANA published The Standards of Clinical
Nursing Practice
 Join Commission on Accreditation of
Hospital Organizations (JCAHO) -
adequate records on patients in hospitals
and practice standards for the
documentation of care by nurses
 Nursing data standards
 Critical Care Classification (CCC)
 National Library of Medicine (NLM) Unified
Medical Language Systems (UMLS)
 SNOMED
 Heath Care Data Standards
Organizations
 standards organizations that have
emerged to either develop or recommend
health care data standards
 American National Standards Institute
(ANSI)
 Health Care Informatics Standards Board
(HISB)
 International Standards Organization
(ISO)
 SNOMED International (Systematized
Nomenclature of Medicine)
 National Committee on Vital and Health
Statistics (NCVHS)
 Early Computer-Based Nursing
Applications
1. early HISs,
2. early ambulatory care information
systems,
3. early community health nursing
information management systems,
4. early computer-focused nursing projects,
and
5. early educational applications.