Building on conversations both on and off-stage at healthcare technology conferences these past few months, I’m energized and encouraged by the evolving role technology plays across so many aspects of health care.
Conversations with colleagues and peers have revolved around how nursing informatics is tied to improving efficiency, enabling increased efficacy and enhancing patient experience. We’re unpacking how technology’s role will continue to advance both near- and long-term for the benefit of our nursing teams and our patients.
For those of us in nursing informatics, this is an especially exciting time, as these advancements are central to our mission and integral to our daily practice. Here, at the convergence of nursing, information technology and data analytics, our work informs decision-making to help ensure provider and patient safety, to aid in prevention and planning for adverse events, and to improve both operational and patient outcomes.
Looking ahead to the latter part of this year and beyond, two key takeaways omnipresent in our conversations will continue to guide our approach in nursing informatics.
One is an emphasis on the potential for technology to significantly impact challenges we face as an industry, including burnout. Enabling solutions that will reduce the administrative burden for nurses and staff is essential.
The second is ensuring business continuity technologies are fully enabled to pave the way for seamless care delivery. Being in Houston, we are no strangers to hurricanes and winter freezes. Because of our team’s expert commitment to routine training and vigilant preparation measures, we are even more equipped to respond.
Keeping these points in mind, the following are three pivotal areas nursing informatics is poised to continue to improve clinical and patient experience.
Driving innovation via integration
As nursing informatics officer at MD Anderson, I see firsthand how new technologies are implemented and adopted across our team of 5,300 nurses. Having a program dedicated to supporting training along with a forum for piloting new technologies has proven invaluable in driving innovation.
I lead the Nursing Innovation program of the Meyers Institute for Oncology Nursing, ensuring our teams are trained on the deployment and integration of new tools. I’ve learned an essential part of integration is ensuring nurses have a seat at the table — that they have a say in the technology we choose to employ, the opportunity to offer feedback and, if necessary, space to help us develop innovative solutions.
The institute’s model features a dedicated task force made up of both nursing leaders and frontline nursing staff. This comprehensive team guides the program’s efforts to identify, prioritize and advance new approaches to enhance patient care and nursing workflows.
Our team has begun hosting dedicated ‘Innovation Days’ for both inpatient and ambulatory nursing teams. These events are valuable opportunities to engage directly with nurses, gather insights and identify needs that will inform the development of future initiatives. Our recent ‘wearables fair’ offered a chance to pilot a new wearable technology with our innovation units.
Leveraging technology to bolster operational continuity
Informatics is one of the most important tools enabling enhanced nursing practice. Utilizing directives and feedback informed by frontline nurses to evaluate current tools and technologies to meet nursing needs, this work bridges information technology and operations support to design, implement and evaluate all technologies impacting how nurses deliver care. This includes EHRs, new care delivery models like our Virtual Registered Nurses program and AI-based technologies, as well as disaster mitigation and operational continuity.
Our efforts have focused on exploring how new technologies can support our daily practice. Leveraging smartphones and our EHR software’s mobile application, we recently launched a voice-to-flowsheet documentation feature. So far, the mobile application has enabled efficient documentation. Results from this pilot endeavor will be applied as we continue analyzing ambient listening capabilities. We are similarly researching integrating EHR data in the development of an oncology-based fall prediction tool.
The work of the nursing informatics team also is inextricably tied to disaster preparedness. Drills and planned system and equipment downtimes occur regularly. The results of these essential efforts are continuously monitored and reviewed to optimize best practices.
Improving nurse wellness while supporting collaborative patient care
Since the launch of our virtual nursing program in April 2023, we’ve seen a clear and measurable increase in support for our inpatient nurses.
The goal of the program is to support VRN and bedside nurses, enabling them to work collaboratively in managing patient care. This allows a bedside nurse to focus on administering medications and make high-level clinical assessments, while the VRN nurse counterpart oversees more standardized tasks such as admission and discharge data entry. From September 2024 to April 2025, virtual nurses conducted 12,441 patient visits. We’ve equated this to saving 2,247 hours in administrative or lower-level tasks for bedside nurses.
While the model of care continues to evolve through process improvements based on our nurses’ experiences and feedback, it has already yielded incredible results — reducing nurse workload, burnout and improving quality of care. A recent in-house survey revealed that 74% of bedside nurses strongly agree the VRN program has allowed them to increase focus on direct patient care.
When we champion and support nursing informatics teams, the crucial metrics we aim for naturally follow. Alongside an incredible group of nurses that I’m both honored and thrilled to work with, I’m regularly reminded of the importance of that work and how we’re benefiting and enhancing clinical and patient experience. I’m excited about the future and our ability to promote models of care that are smarter, more connected and built for the future.
