As generative AI continues to make its way into healthcare, chief nursing informatics officers say the technology’s influence is expanding beyond documentation and reshaping the way nurses work.
“AI is reshaping the nurse’s day beyond just easing the burden of documentation, and I only see its use cases continuing to grow as we further introduce AI to assist our clinical teams,” Nicole Gitney-Fahey, vice president and chief nursing informatics officer at Clearwater, Fla.-based BayCare Health System, told Becker’s.
Ms. Gitney-Fahey said AI can help with tasks that often cause delays or create mental strain for nursing staff.
“Shift change reports can be time-consuming as the oncoming team member hunts and pecks for information in the EMR,” she said. “By introducing AI to create patient-specific summaries and hand-off communication, the most important details will be teed up for the nurse in one location.”
She also pointed to AI’s potential role in reducing hospital-acquired conditions.
“AI can improve outcomes and reduce hospital-acquired infections by being incorporated into monitoring solutions for risks like falls and infections,” she said. “Nurses are asking for the ability to recall information and to set personal reminders. Utilizing AI to recommend and summarize clinical standards, policies and procedures will ensure that the organizational standards are followed.”
Beyond bedside care, Ms. Gitney-Fahey said nursing leaders could use AI for staffing and administrative tasks.
“Nursing leaders will also benefit from AI by automating workflows using knowledge worker tools, predictive staffing models and automated staff assignments based on nursing skill,” she said. “These innovative ideas will continue to evolve and redefine nursing workflows to decrease cognitive overload and burnout, increase team member satisfaction, improve patient care and free up more time for bedside care.”
Jennifer Carpenter, DNP, RN, chief nursing informatics officer at Cleveland-based University Hospitals Health System, echoed many of these sentiments and said she is watching closely how generative AI could enhance administrative functions in nursing.
“I’m very interested to see the advancement of generative AI to support the administrative side of nursing practice, including things like adaptive and more personalized scheduling, better aligned to trends in case load and census,” Ms. Carpenter told Becker’s.
She also sees value in AI’s potential to help nurse leaders respond faster to emerging needs.
“Providing insights and actions for nurse leaders to support their teams in ways that make a difference,” Ms. Carpenter said, “prompts for proactive and targeted leadership rounding on patients and families based on trends of clinical activity in the medical record. This is an opportunity to address any patient experience or quality concerns early.”
