CU Nursing - Spring/Summer 2019 - 10

RESEARCH

provided divided by costs can be measured," she said.
"There is much to be learned about nurse characteristics
and processes contributing to quality patient outcomes."
Welton added, "We are at the start of our journey to
better understand the inner workings of health care by
examining the care of each provider. We know a lot about
physician care, but we are just beginning to collect data
at the individual nurse-patient unit of analysis."
The foundational D2V project has started a national
dialogue on how to use this work to collect increasingly
larger datasets to complement the many efforts to improve future health-care systems.
John Welton and Peggy Jenkins

PROVIDING QUALITY CARE
Playing a huge role in the future of health care, Big Data
is becoming more important to measure the quality of
care provided to patients. Jenkins believes that nurses are
just one of many individual interprofessional providers
of patient care who can help in improving the quality of
health care.
"Interprofessional collaboration of data scientists, informaticians, nurse scientists, nurse leaders, academia,
clinical practice sites, and industry is necessary to construct data warehouses," she said.
Although not all hospitals and health-care settings have
large database warehouses, the multidisciplinary work at
the CU Anschutz Medical Campus is a step in the right
direction. Problems such as incompatible data systems
could make it hard to import data to use to improve
quality of care. Patient confidentiality can also become
an issue. With large amounts of data such as electronic
health records being housed in one database, it can make
patients' information vulnerable to a security breech, so
it is important to have clear protocols in place to make
the data secure.
Additionally, Big Data can create higher-value care that
is more efficient, effective, higher quality and more cost
effective, which can improve the care patients receive
from providers in all sectors of the health field. This is
particularly essential to nursing care, Jenkins notes.
"Using new methods, nurses are viewed as unique providers of patient care, and the value of quality nursing care

CU College of Nursing

Big Data's
Impact on
Health Care
With technology becoming more present in
the delivery of health-care services, more
data is being collected than ever before.
From tracking vital signs to discover trends,
charting patient care histories through
electronic health records, or using multiple
patients' health histories to predict health
conditions and create treatment plans. Big
Data is being used to reduce costs, create
innovative treatments and provide effective
care in a timely manner.

CU Nursing - Spring/Summer 2019

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