Using ACHIS to Analyze Nursing Health Promotion Interventions for Vulnerable Populations in a Community Nursing Center: A Pilot Study.

OBJECTIVES The purpose of the study was to describe the health promotion interventions of nurses serving a low-income urban population in an academic community nursing center (CNC) in Wisconsin. METHODS The Omaha System (OS) was used to code client problems and nursing interventions for 9,839 visits at the CNC. A dataset created by the Automated Community Health Information System (ACHIS), a computerized clinical information system, was used. A pilot testing was performed with the ACHIS data repository. Each intervention was linked to a nursing diagnosis coded with modifiers as either actual or potential problems or health promotion issues. The Lundeen's Comprehensive Community-based Primary Health Care Model (CCPHCM) which emphasizes primary prevention and health promotion activities served as the conceptual framework for this study. RESULTS A total of 58,747 modifiers were documented for 58,747 nursing diagnoses where a total of 9,836 nursing interventions were provided to 9,839 community center visits at the CNC. Although a majority of the nursing diagnoses (61.8%) were coded as actual problems as might be expected for this vulnerable population, 38% of the client problems were documented as potential problems (20.6%) and health promotion issues (17.7%.) Health Teaching, Guidance and Counseling (38.9%) and Case Management (25.8%) were the most frequently coded interventions. CONCLUSION This research adds to the understanding of the importance of nurses' interventions toward health promotion with the vulnerable population. This preliminary analysis suggests that the ACHIS provide a clinical information system for collecting, storing, processing, retrieving, and managing clinical data in a data repository. [Asian Nursing Research 2009;3(3):130-138].