Turning Stress into Success: A Nursing Informatics Team Approach

Stress and anxiety is difficult to control as it is personal and includes several variables that are innate to all individuals. This abstract focuses on how a six-member nursing informatics team in a Southwest academic safety net community health organization leads several organizational strategic initiatives and several committees while achieving successful patient care outcomes. Current literature reviews focus on decreasing the burden of documentation for physicians and essential healthcare team members while decreasing documentation stressors. Nursing informatics teams lead these initiatives. Minimal data and research exists on recognizing stress among nursing informatics specialists and minimizing stressors in the various roles informatics specialists take within health care. What are organizations implementing in health care to address turnover, stress, and fatigue for nursing informatics teams? What can leaders do to recognize stress and minimize stress while addressing strategic goal completion and project management for constantly changing hospital ambulatory healthcare environments? How are leaders addressing the scope and standards of practice for nursing informatics while integrating the standards and incorporating them into actionable measures that lead organizations with minimizing stress?

Nursing informatics roles in health care vary within different healthcare settings. How are leaders addressing both nursing goals and organizational goals to move organizations forward with nursing informatics teams? Are organizations specifically looking at nursing informatics teams while addressing associate engagement or are nursing informatics team engagement scores included in the overall nursing survey scores? This abstract examines these questions with the aim of addressing successful implementation of stress-reducing interventions utilizing the cognitive load theory, the job demands resource model, and the SKY breath mediation technique.

This poster addresses the successful implementation of stress-reducing interventions utilizing the following theories incorporated in team meetings, communication techniques and weekly TAKE-15 meetings: the cognitive load theory, the job demands resource model, the SKY breath meditation technique, and Neuman’s systems model.

The aim of this presentation is to identify the intrinsic and extrinsic stimulus that evokes the biological effect we know as stress in nursing informatics. Interventions proactively identifying stress with transparency, holding team and individual meetings while focusing on the unique human factor (art of self) developed by the author as an approach to turn stress into success are outlined.

Findings resulted in zero turnover for over a year, positive associate engagement scores utilizing Press Ganey at 80-90%, positive working relationships, and continuous achievement of organizational goals. Nursing informatics team members are leaders of governance councils from nursing research and quality improvement and process improvement councils. In addition, three members are Texas Baldrige reviewers. The nursing informatics team are members and leaders for the forms committee, hospital policies and procedures and promoting interoperability, Leapfrog, and Texas immunizations programs. Other committees include environment of care, patient safety, revenue cycle, health information management, and emergency management, as well as clinical content review leads for modifications in the EHR.

More research related to address both the practical and theoretical impact for other nursing informatics teams focused on decreasing stress in ever-changing healthcare environments must take place.