Nursing Informatics Day: Celebrate with NursingCenter and CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing

“The most vital thing nurses need to know about IT is that it shouldn’t be technology. IT is not about hard drives and is not necessarily about programming, and we actually cannot fix someone’s Outlook problems. Informatics is about how we manage data and knowledge from each a process and technical perspective to enhance healthcare. Mollie R. Cummins, PhD, RN, FAAN has been a practicing nurse since 1994 and has gained recognition within the specialty of nursing informatics throughout her profession. She received her doctorate in nursing science and informatics from Indiana University, is an associate professor of nursing and assistant professor of biomedical informatics on the University of Utah, and currently serves as president of the Utah Nursing Informatics Network. Cummins also most recently served as editor of the magazine’s ANI Connection and CIN Plus columns.

Nursing Informatics Day falls on May 12 and falls as a part of National Nurses Week. He says, “It’s meIt is important for nursing informatics to celebrate their profession in conjunction with Nurses Week, especially this year because the focus this year is on safety. IT has been identified as one of the most promising approaches to improving safety in clinical settings. IT-enabled strategies like administering medicines via barcodes can really make a differencecreates safety deficiencies and vulnerabilities in clinical settings, so it is very important that nursing informatics is a part of this.”