18.  Other Benefits: • Decision support tools as 
           well as alerts and reminders notify the clinician 
           of possible concerns or omissions. An example 
           of this, is the documentation of patient 
           allergies in the computer system. The health 
           care providers would be alerted to any 
           discrepancies in the patient medication orders. 
           • Effective data management and trend finding 
           include the ability to provide historical or 
           current data reports. 
            19.  • Extensive financial information: can be 
           collected and analyzed for trends. An 
           extremely important benefit in this era of 
           managed care and cost cutting. • Data related 
           to treatment such as inpatient length of stay 
           and the lowest level of care provider required 
           can be used to decrease costs. 
           20.  TRENDS NURSING INFORMATICS: 
            21.  Past Nursing Informatics • Nursing 
           informatics was first defined as the use of 
           computer technology to support nursing, 
           including clinical practice, administration, 
           education and research. 
            22.  • The first generation of nursing 
           information systems was designed to speed 
           paperwork and communication. In general, the 
           systems accomplished this by transferring 
           information to the computer, what nurses had 
           done on paper and by telephone. These 
           systems replaced paper records, filing cabinets 
           and pneumatic tubes. Although this was 
           helpful and effective in reducing the time spent 
           on documentation and communication it did 
           not address many of the fundamental issues 
           for nurses’ use of data
           23.  • Until 1948, primary care remained in the 
           home. With the development of Hill-Burton 
           Act of 1948, money was provided for the 
           building of hospitals and promoted a catalyst 
           for change in healthcare. In the 1960’s, 
           Medicare and Medicaid provided 
           reimbursement for services to many individual 
           patients and the health insurance industry 
           grew. This provision of funding allowed many 
           new innovations: new drugs, advanced surgical 
           procedures, new technologies and equipment, 
           and sophisticated diagnostic procedures. All of 
           which led to the development of medical 
           specialties,
           24.  • It is not unusual to find a patient being 
           treated by several physicians at the same time. 
           These physicians share little information; they 
           may duplicate tests or prescribe medications 
           that are not compatible with those prescribed 
           by another physician. The current healthcare 
           system relies primarily on paper records that 
           are oriented to episodes and providers 
           (Thede). 
            25.  • During the past four decades the U.S. 
           government has played a major role in the 
           development and promotion of telehealth 
           through various agencies. Although interest 
           waned as funds were depleted in the 1980’s, 
           technological advancements made it a more 
           attractive prospect. Federal monies and 
           Agriculture Department’s 1991 Rural 
           Development Act laid the groundwork for 
           bringing the information superhighway to rural 
           areas for education and telehealth purposes
           26.  • The most aggressive development of 
           telehealth consults for Armenian earthquake 
           victims in 1989, while more recently the 
           military has been working on several projects 
           to feed medical images from the battlefield to 
           physicians in hospitals for improved treatment 
           of casualties