Interview with Patricia Dykes, DNSc, RN, FAAN, FACMI
Former Chair, American Medical informatics Association (AMIA) Nursing Informatics Workgroup (NIWG)
Conducted by: Joyce Sensmeier, MS, RN-BC, CPHIMS, FHIMSS, FAAN
ANI Innovator Profile: AMIA NIWG
NIWG is the Nursing Informatics Working Group of the American Medical Informatics Association. Core to our mission is the belief that the application of nursing informatics knowledge is empowering for all healthcare practitioners in achieving patient-centered care. American Medical informatics Association NIWG members work as developers of communication and information technologies, educators, researchers, chief nursing officers, chief information officers, software engineers, implementation consultants, policy developers, and business owners to advance healthcare. Core areas of our work include the following:
* Concept representation and standards to support evidence-based practice, research, and education
* Data and communication standards to build an interoperable national data infrastructure
* Research methodologies to disseminate new knowledge into practice
* Information presentation and retrieval approaches to support safe patient-centered care
* Information and communication technologies to address interprofessional workflow needs across all care venues
* Vision and management for the development, design, and implementation of communication and information technology
* Definition of healthcare policy to advance the public's health
Interview With Patricia Dykes
1. What is the primary mission of AMIA NIWG?
The primary mission of AMIA NIWG is to promote the advancement of nursing informatics within the larger interdisciplinary context of health informatics. The organization and its members pursue this goal in many arenas: professional practice, education, research, governmental and other services, professional organizations, and industry. The Working Group represents the interests of nursing informatics for its members and AMIA through member services and outreach functions, provides official representation to IMIA-NI, and liaises to other national and international groups.
2. How many members do you currently have?
We currently have more than 400 members.
3. What projects is AMIA NIWG working on to advance informatics and innovation in healthcare?
American Medical informatics Association NIWG members are leaders in the field of nursing and healthcare informatics. The work of AMIA NIWG is organized around a committee structure to ensure that the AMIA NIWG mission and vision are linked with specific actions. Each NIWG committee has a set of deliverables that move us closer to our vision. A few examples are included hereinafter:
* The AMIA NIWG Events Committee works to ensure that nursing informatics is front and center at the AMIA Annual Symposium. This committee plans educational sessions (tutorial, panels) and solicits paper and panel submissions with nurse first authors. Moreover, the AMIA NIWG Events Committee plans the annual Sunday Networking Event at the AMIA Annual Symposium to provide a forum for communication, networking, and dissemination of information important to nursing informatics.
* The AMIA NIWG Education Committee plans educational Webinars throughout the year that disseminate nursing informatics content, bring value to AMIA NIWG members, and help AMIA NIWG to fulfill its mission. For example, earlier this year, NIWG offered a Webinar entitled "Authoring Scholarly Submissions for AMIAs Annual Symposium" to facilitate submissions by nurses to the Annual Symposium. In addition, the AMIA NIWG Education Committee mentors nurses who are interested in scholarly writing but have not yet developed this skill set.
* The AMIA NIWG Policy and Standards Committee responds to request for comments to national policy and standards initiatives.
* The AMIA NIWG Scholarly Project Initiative Committee is focused on advancing nursing informatics science and integration of the science within all domains of nursing practice, education, and research. The committee members are developing models, tools, and value propositions that explain the science and process of nursing informatics. The goal is to have a clinical practice and knowledge development model that can be used globally to enable data exchange, measure comparisons, and foster research collaborations not currently feasible.
* AMIA NIWG Expert Database & Speaker's Bureau Initiative Committee is working to implement an Expert Database & Speaker's Bureau that will be an authoritative and reliable resource to promote nursing and biomedical informatics and will assist organizations with identifying high-quality informatics speakers.
4. What value do you see in AMIA NIWG being an ANI member?
The members of AMIA NIWG value collaborating through ANI with other nursing informatics groups to advance issues that are important to nursing informatics and healthcare. ANI provides a mechanism for us to come together as a single, unified voice that is much more likely to be heard and to make an impact than if we all acted in isolation.
5. In what way(s) is AMIA NIWG supporting ANI Initiatives, for example, the ANI consumer pledge, ANI Comments & Testimony, the Emerging Leader program, etc?
The AMIA NIWG participates in the ANI consumer pledge. Our members have both benefited from and participated in the Emerging Leaders program. For example, AMIA NIWG members have served as mentors for the ANI Emerging Leaders program, and one of the current ANI emerging leaders is an AMIA NIWG member. As described previously, the AMIA NIWG Policy and Standards Committees are actively engaged in providing comments in conjunction with ANI to ensure that the voice of nursing is heard in the healthcare policy debate. Many AMIA NIWG members have testified before congressional committees alongside other ANI members to articulate a unified voice on issues that are important to nursing informatics and patient care.
6. What is AMIA NIWG's vision for the future of nursing informatics?
American Medical informatics Association NIWG's vision for the future of nursing informatics is that nursing informatics will continue to advance within the larger interdisciplinary context of health informatics and that nurse informaticians will assume leadership roles in making sure that the patient is front and center in all that we do. The AMIA NIWG aims to collaborate through ANI with other nursing informatics organizations to leverage informatics (data, information, knowledge, and nursing wisdom) to transform healthcare.
Biography for Patricia C. Dykes DNSc, RN, FAAN, FACMI
Patricia Dykes was Chair of the AMIA Nursing Informatics Working Group from 2014 through 2015 and serves on the AMIA Board of Directors. Currently, she is a senior nurse scientist and program director for research in the Center for Patient Safety Research and Practice and the Center for Nursing Excellence at Brigham and Women's Hospital and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. While funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Dykes and her team developed a fall prevention toolkit that significantly reduced falls in hospitals. The results of their study were published in JAMA. They have expanded this research to explore the use of technology to provide the core set of information needed by care team members (including patients) at the bedside to engage in safe patient care. Dr Dykes is the author of two books and more than 50 peer-reviewed publications. She has presented her work both nationally and internationally. She is a member of the National Institutes of Health Biomedical Computing and Health Informatics Study Section, Center for Scientific Review, a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and the American College of Medical Informatics.
This is a selected transcript of an interview from the ANI site archives, originally recorded on May 17, 2013. A transcript of each ANI Innovator Profile interview may be found at http://www.allianceni.org.
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