Nursing Informatics in AsiaGroup 1:

Taiwan

There were 610 hospitals and 175,000 healthcare professionals in Taiwan in 2002, serving a population of 22.5 million. The healthcare professionals included 34.3% registered nurses and 17.7% licensed practicing

History of Nursing Informatics in Taiwan

The term NI was just first used on in Taiwan in 1990

At that time the focus was on Hospital Information System providing nursing data such as; nursing personnel information, care planning, and scheduling.

Computers had been used in nursing education since the 1980’s

Formal Masters program focusing on NI was not available until 2001.

Nursing information system in Taiwan

Unpublished results of a 2002 national security survey: Only 27% of hospitals had implemented

nursing information system 9% were developing 24% were making plans to develop 40% were not planning to make any

investment.

Pattern of long-term-care information system: 50% of long term-care institutes were

not planning any investment 19% had installed information system.

Nursing Informatics Education Computer-assisted instruction programs have

been developed by the Ministry of Education for nursing vocational educational programs since 1986.

Content includes the following: Diet education for diabetic patients Biostatistics Maternal child health Stress management Patient nutritionThe growth of the internet has lead to the integration of distance education into nursing curricula

Nursing Informatics Education Online courses are available for baccalaureate programs

in counseling, teaching principles and strategies, and long-term care. In addition, some schools provide multimedia self-testing system.

At least six graduate programs in health or medical informatics provide informatics trainings at master’s level for student with nursing backgrounds: the National Yang-Ming University, the National Taipei College of Nursing, the National Chung-Chung University, Taipei Medical University, Chang-Gung University, and Tzu-Chi University.

Among these six universities, the National Yang-Ming University, the National Chung-Cheng University, Taipei Medical University, and Tzu-Chi University have PhD programs with a current total of around 10 students with nursing backgrounds, but no PhDs have been awarded yet

Nursing Informatics Research NI research is still at its infancy in

Taiwan, with only around 40 papers published in domestic nursing journals in the period 1994-2003. The first formal academic association on NI was set up in 2004, when a NI working group was organized within the Taiwan Association of Medical Informatics, which had been established in 1991.

Standardized terminology such as existing nursing diagnosis classification systems and the ICNP have been translated for clinical use, and tests of their reliability and validity have been proposed in Taiwan

Qualitative approaches such as interviews have been used to explore how well nurses will accept the change from manual charting to computerized documentation. Quantitative approaches such as surveys have been applied to investigate the attitude and satisfaction toward the use of personal digital assistants(PDAs) for charting and the storage of nursing records.

Nursing Informatics Practice Computerized care plans are now common

in clinical use. Moreover, decision support systems to test the integration of medical diagnoses and nursing diagnoses, and expert systems implemented on PDAs for the emergency triage system have been reported.

Patient classification systems have also been applied for patient assessment, nursing interventions, and staff workload assignments.

Nurses can chart vital signs and input and output laboratory data, medication, or medical history without having to go back to nursing stations.

Standardization and the National Health Information Infrastructure The ROC Biological and Medical

Engineering Association and the Taiwan Association of Medical Informatics successfully obtained approvals from the international DICOM and HL7 organizations to become the members in 2000. The HL7 and DICOM have been widely adopted as the national standards by government, academic, and industrial institutes, notably by the Ministry of Health in Taiwan

A national “e-Taiwan” program has been promoted by the Ministry of Health to promote the development of health informatics in Taiwan since 2002. Another, larger program (the National Health Information Infrastructure Program) is expected to start in early 2005. Both programs will enhance the development of NI in Taiwan.

Japan

Japan

The population of Japan is about 127 million.

Twice of UK, half of united states

10,000 hospitals in japan, 430 have more than 400 beds

750,000 nurses work at these hospitals, including 220,000 nurse aides 260,000 medical doctors, 90,000 dentists, and 230,000 pharmacists

Health Informatics in Japan Japan began to pay attention to the use of

computers in healthcare during the late 1970s following the increase use of computers in other industries.

Japan hosted the IMIA(International Medical Informatics Association) conference MEDINFO80 in 1980

The Japanese Association of Medical Informatics(JAMI) was founded at that time with the aim of supporting health informatics in Japan.

Initially research was focused on computerized billing systems for medical fess, and the development of the use of personal computers at an individual level(JAMI, 2004)

The focus then shifted to research and development of systems at the organizational level.

Medical information departments in about 50 national university hospitals have made the largest contribution to the development of health informatics in Japan.

Organizations have been developing its own information systems for its own applications to clinical practice, education, and research.

History of Nursing Informatics in Japan

The Third International Congress on Medical Informatics, MEDINFO80, organized by the IMIA, was held in Tokyo in 1980.

100 universities offering baccalaureate programs and 40 universities offering graduate programs. Some baccalaureate programs and graduate schools include NI courses in their curricula.