What Is Nursing Informatics?
According to the HIMSS 2017 Nursing Informatics Workforce Survey, nursing informaticists are in a growing field that offers a rewarding career move and one that also helps to advance the field of nursing. Nursing informaticists use their nursing backgrounds, cutting-edge technology, and all the data, communication, and information that is produced in the field to make a healthier world.
According to the American Medical Informatics Association, nurse informaticists are challenged with a wide set of responsibilities, most of which focus on the systems and technologies in which patient information, healthcare results, and research findings are used, stored, and connected. Survey respondents classified their jobs into three main categories: systems implementation, utilization and optimization, and systems development.
Some informaticists tasks include building regional and nationally connected data and communication systems, determining the best ways to ensure that research findings are accessible through practice, promoting information presentation and retrieval in a manner that supports safe patient care, and even defining healthcare policies.
According to the survey, nearly half of the respondents reported great career satisfaction earning salaries of more than $100,000. Because the field is progressing so rapidly, given the technological developments, nursing informaticists receive both on-the-job training and additional training. Forty-one percent of the respondents said they are participating in some kind of degree program to get additional training—including a formal degree program or a non-degree degree program or coursework.
Many nursing informaticists are registered nurses and then go on to earn a bachelor’s or master’s in nursing to gain expertise in the field. Some nursing informaticists might earn an advanced degree in an information technology area like computer science. For those looking to earn an advanced degree, scholarships are available through the American Nursing Informatics Association.
If you are interested in nurse informatics, certification from the American Nurses Credentialing Center is also available and the survey results showed that about 51 percent of respondents indicated they would be pursuing some kind of certification and that they thought this additional education would have a positive impact on their careers.
If you’re a nurse who enjoys technology, check out this branch of nursing.
