Practice Question: In adult patients aged 18 years and older with a diagnosis of depression, will implementing the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) Guidelines for exercising impact depression scores over 8-10 weeks?

            Information technology is an integral component of quality, safe, and efficient healthcare delivery (Bergey et al., 2019). As the foundation of the future, IT plays an important role in nursing practice (Farokhzadian et al., 2020). Using IT, the DNP student can educate the staff, patients, and families about health-related issues to expand knowledge and improve patient outcomes.

My practicum site is faced with a knowledge-practice gap. To address this practice gap of a non-pharmacological approach to the management of depression affecting patients, the organization as well as the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) student must leverage innovative strategies and the use of information technology (IT) to improve patient care, outcomes, and provide quality care (Role et al., 2021). IT skills are required to identify the extent of the practice gap, its incidence, significance, and cost to the patients as well as the facility and how to provide the solution to the problem.

The DNP student must use IT skills to capture data that will be used in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of the Project. IT skills are required to map out how the project will be implemented, where and how the participants will document their activities, track the activities as well as evaluate the effectiveness of the project.

How important will IT competencies be to the role/position that you aspire to after completion of your DNP degree? What IT skills do you need to develop? Share your plan for professional development to develop these skills.

IT skills are essential to the role I perform and aspire to perform in the future. My goal is to use evidence-based practice to continue to advocate for patients’ safety and improve patient outcomes. This process requires an extensive literature search using IT. IT will be required to gather and store data needed as well as to educate the patients and staff to expand their knowledge. I will continue to expand on my IT skills, learning how to navigate library searches more efficiently, how to create tables, and embed documents.

Provide your instructor and student colleagues with an update on your implementation plans for your DNP Project. Share any successes, challenges, or barriers you experienced this week

I continue to make corrections to my synthesis of the literature paper as highlighted by the instructor. This will help ensure smoother project implementation.

                                                                                                          References

Bergey, Goldsack, J. C., & Robinson, E. J. (2019). Invisible work and changing roles: Health information technology implementation and reorganization of work practices for the inpatient nursing team. Social Science & Medicine (1982), 235, 112387–112387.

Farokhzadian, Khajouei, R., Hasman, A., & Ahmadian, L. (2020). Nurses’ experiences and viewpoints about the benefits of adopting information technology in health care: a qualitative study in Iran. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 20(1), 240–240. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12911-020-01260-5

Role, Chao, H., Rosario, C., Ho, P., & Hodgkins, M. (2021). Inpatient Staffing Dashboard: A nursing–information technology collaborative project. Computers, Informatics, Nursing, 39(11), 772–779. https://doi.org/10.1097/CIN.0000000000000778