Florence Nightingale can truly be considered the world's first Informatics Nurse Specialist (INS), if not the world's first healthcare informaticist. Her pioneering work in nursing and public health reform was based solidly in information/informatics. In this great tradition of Florence Nightingale, researchers at the Center for Urban Health Systems at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-School of Nursing are examining public health nursing issues in a large urban area from an informatics perspective. This approach (the "Nightingale Method") defines informatics as delivering the right information to the right location at the right time so that the right action is taken to optimally achieve stated health-related goals; in other words, the just-in-time-arrival of information to achieve goals. The goals addressed in this paper are: one hundred percent access and zero percent disparities. This paper presents an informatics-based "access and disparities" model developed through interviews with patients and providers, examination of the literature, interdisciplinary collaboration, insights from the work of both Florence Nightingale and W. Edward Deming (one hundred percent quality control model), and findings in the area of Knowledge Discovery in Large Databases (KDD). The model views information as a commodity/tool of use to all nurses in identifying, monitoring, and changing access patterns and disparity. The model addresses Cultural Competence from an informatics perspective and indicates its role in achieving the access and disparity goals. The extent to which the model can be generalized to address Global Health issues is also discussed.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this session, the participant (learner) in this session will be able to: 1. Articulate the key components of the "Nightingale Method." 2. Describe the informatics components of access and disparities issues. 3. Analyze and evaluate public health nursing issues not addressed in this session using the "Mightingale Method" (informatics approach).
Keywords: Information Systems, Public Health
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.