Is a Nursing Informatics Career right for me?
Imagine a nurse or health care professional combined with a techy person. Although in the past these two fields would be an odd pair to combine, today there is a field called “healthcare” or “nursing informatics” that is in high demand.What is Nursing Informatics? What is Health Informatics? The Definition of Nursing Informatics.
According to the International Medical Informatics Association, “Nursing informatics is the integration of nursing, its information, and information management with information processing and communication technology, to support the health of people world wide.” Individuals who would enjoy and succeed at nursing informatics are those interested in both health care and technology.
Background on the Nursing Informatics Field: HIMSS and RHIO
To provide some background on the field of healthcare/nursing informatics, there are some governing bodies for this field. The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) is the main governing body for healthcare and nursing informatics professionals. This group, formed in 2004, has the following four goals: NI awareness, education, resources (including websites), and RHIO (Regional Health Information Organization). RHIOs are also known as Community Health Information Networks (CHINs). It is where most all physicians, hospitals, laboratories, radiology centers and insurance companies are all connected to the same network; all sharing and transmitting patient information electronically in a secure system. They include a group of organizations with a business interest in improving the quality of healthcare being administered.The Nursing Process
The nursing process has four main steps: planning, implementation, evaluation, and assessment. However, because information management is integrated into the nursing process and practice, some nursing communities identify a fifth step in the nursing process: documentation. Documentation and patient-centered care are the core components of the nursing process. Automated documentation is vitally important, not just for nursing, but for all patient care. Up-to-date, accurate information at each step of the nursing process is the key to safe, high quality patient-centered care.
The successful implementation of information systems in nursing and healthcare requires several factors. First, it is necessary to have well designed systems that support the nursing process within the culture of an organization. The second requirement is having the acceptance and integration of information systems into the regular workflow of the nursing process and patient care. Finally, it is important to have resources that can support the previously mentioned factors. One of the most effective and valuable resources a healthcare organization can add is a nursing informaticist.
What exactly are Nursing Informaticists?
Nursing Informaticists are expert clinicians with extensive clinical practice background. These individuals have experience in utilizing and implementing the nursing process. Another aspect of being a nursing or healthcare informaticist is being an expert nursing clinician in utilizing the nursing process. Nursing Informaticists have excellent analytical and critical thinking skills. They also understand the patient care delivery workflow and integration points for automated documentation. Having additional education and experience with information systems is also important for this occupation. Finally, nursing informaticists are excellent project managers because of the similarity between the project management process and the nursing process.
The Value of Nursing Informaticists. Why Jobs in Nursing Informatics are Important.
Nursing Informaticists bring a great deal of value to patients and the healthcare system. Ways they provide value include: supporting nursing work processes using technology, increasing the accuracy and completeness of nursing documentation, improving the nurse’s workflow, automating the collection and reuse of nursing data, facilitating analysis of clinical data, and providing nursing content to standardized languages.
The Many Roles of a Nursing Informaticist
- Vendors, including sales, software development, implementation, and education to train clients/users.
- Hospital Systems, including staff nurse, analyst (support/implement systems), directors/managers of nursing informatics, project managers, and CIO (Chief Information Officer).
- Consultant, including software implementation, software/system solution selection, process improvement, and project management
- Education/Research
- Long-term care
- Ambulatory
- Home care
Nursing Informatics Professional Organizations
- Nursing Informatics Taskforce – HIMSS
- Midwest Alliance for Nursing Informatics – now merged with HIMSS
- Capitol Area Roundtable on Informatics in Nursing
- American Nursing Informatics Association
- Nursing Informatics Working Group of AMIA
- British Computer Society Nursing Specialist Group
- The Special Interest Group of the International Medical Informatics Association
Steps to Health Informatics Jobs
To enter into the nursing informatics field, typically you need a minimum of a four year degree. Earning your Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing (BSN) is also a requirement before sitting for the ANCC certifications test for Nursing Informatics. Some individuals start with just a two year degree or diploma, but continue on to earn their BSN before becoming certified. Although there are several different routes for getting into the field, the most favored manner is to earn a Master’s in Nursing Informatics from the start, however, most individuals start their career before earning their master’s.
Most nurses who are in informatics start in a specialty area, such as the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), Perioperative Services (OR), Med-Surg, Orthopedic Nursing, or Oncology, just to name a few, and work in that specialty field for an extended period. Working in a specialty area helps nurses get to know the normal working processes and routines as well as understand the ins and outs of patient care in their specialty. They usually are experts at their specialty and then develop interests in computerized documentation or some other technological healthcare focus. They then tend to gradually move into an information systems clinical support role.
Health Informatics Internships/Practicums
Health informatics Internships, also referred to as practicums, are typically for master's degree students to increase their experience in a target area under the guidance of an experienced nurse. For example, at some nursing schools, the students have two clinical practicum experiences which are two semester credits each. These practicums are selected based on the leaning needs of the student. They are matched with a master's prepared nurse or other approved professional. The students write goals for the experience which are approved by the preceptor and faculty member. At some schools, the first practicum experience is under the guidance of a preceptor and in the second experience, although still with a prceptor, the student takes on a project-management focused role. Generally these practicum expereicnes are unpaid. The student usually finds their own experience, but the program director or internship coordinator oftentimes helps them with contacts should they need it. Usually clinical sites require contracts between the school and the site, so they must be arranged prior to the actual start of the practicum.Sample course descrption for a nursing informatics practicum/internship
In this clinical course, the student implements the role of the clinical informatics nurse working in department of a hospital information system. The focus is on the integration of theory, knowledge, and skills from previous courses within the various roles open to an informatics nurse.How to Succeed in the Nursing Informatics Field
To succeed in the field of nursing informatics, a person should be analytical, detail oriented, and possess a strong clinical understanding of workflows. With that said, it is important for new nurses to get familiar with the processes and workflows before going into the informatics field. The clinical areas and their workflows are very important factors when working in informatics and electronic documentation.
To be competitive in this field one should become familiar with relational databases by taking a class about database structure and build. They should also become competent and comfortable with MS Office, especially Excel and Access. Visio is another program that is good to learn.
Nursing Informatics Position Titles
There are a few different job positions within the nursing informatics and health informatics fields that someone can obtain. The list below includes common job positions within this field. Some of these positions are different titles for the same position and others are completely different positions.
- Clinical Director of informatics
- Informatics Director
- Informatics Manager
- Nursing Informaticist
- Health Informaticist
- Director of Patient Care Informatics
- Informatics Analyst
- Clinical Informaticist
- Medical Informaticist
- Clinical Informatics Nurse
- Clinical Quality Informatics
- Informatics Nurse Specialist
- Specialist of Nursing Informatics
- Susan Rogers - Vice President of Nursing Informatics
- Jane Meyers - Project Manager, Clinical Systems Analyst
- Hirut Girma- Project Manager, Nursing/Health Informatics
Other Health / Nursing Informatics Categories
To learn more about Health / Nursing Informatics careers, degrees, schools, and salaries, visit the following links/pages.
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