Nursing informatics: essential within the occupation

Nursing informatics is a well-liked profession path for nurses. But even if you happen to’re not planning a nursing profession in informatics – or you do not think you might have enough computer or technology skills to accomplish that – you must understand how informatics affects you, your colleagues, and your patients. The American Nurses Association (ANA) defines nursing informatics because the specialty that identifies, defines, manages, and communicates data, information, knowledge, and wisdom in nursing practice. Essential elements – data, information, knowledge and wisdom – cover the concept of connecting data in meaningful ways. According to Dr. Susan K. Newbold, RN-BC, FAAN, FHIMSS, FAMIA, director of the Nursing Informatics Boot Camp through the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and speaker for Nurse.com Nursing Informatics Certification Overview Course, significant ways include:

• — This process involves collecting and organizing repeated data, resembling a patient’s vital signs, over time and collecting and organizing this information.
• – Knowledge develops after data is transformed into information. For example, if a returning patient’s vital signs are checked and an abnormality is detected, resembling a low heart rate, health care providers can compare this data with information of their records. This variety of information may indicate that the patient may require further testing.
• The goal after the event of information is to impart wisdom. This means integrating and applying knowledge to enhance patient care processes and procedures.

Nurse informaticians aren’t alone of their contributions to this specialty. Nurses and other frontline health care employees are helping advance information technology, including ultimately improving patient care, Newbold said. Because these professionals understand patient care needs and optimal workflows, and work day by day to gather and apply data, additionally they play a crucial role in nursing informatics.

Choosing a Career in Nursing Informatics

“Nursing informatics is much more than using a computer,” Newbold said. Specialization integrates nursing sciences with many information and analytical sciences– says ANA. A well known focus of nursing informatics – and healthcare informatics basically – is electronic health records. According to American Association for Health InformaticsIT nurses work as:

• Creators of communication and knowledge technologies
• Educators
• Programmers
• Project managers
• Scientists
• Nurse leaders
• Chief Information Officers
• Software engineers
• Implementation consultants
• Policy makers
• Healthcare business owners

In these positions, nursing informatics experts are always in search of answers to data questions. Newbold described the sorts of questions these experts often answer:

• Where are you able to find the information you would like?
• Is the information accurate or not?
• Is this the fitting data type?
• How to make data meaningful and informative?
• How to rework data into nursing knowledge?
• How do you employ this information to predict patient outcomes?

“When I began in nursing informatics, we were very busy worrying about data and its location. Most of them were on paper. Now, thank God, they’re on the pc,” Newbold said. “We’re starting to put it together. We’re starting to get feedback [and] develop dashboards that tell us how well we are doing in patient care. This is the heart of why every nurse needs to be IT literate: because we need it to provide better care for our patients.” Careers are certainly evolving. Years ago, nurses may have been more willing to study computer science to help with data implementation. Today, as the demand for nurse informaticians increases, many hospitals and other employers have such systems, and nurses and other informatics experts oversee the “optimization” that is, expanding and improving how data is collected and used, said Newbold, for example, one of the issues that experts in the field of nursing informatics are dealing with today is documentation burden – whether nurses have to document too much information and how to optimize the process. “We continue to see job growth,” Newbold said. we no longer think as much as we did when we were at the implementation stage, but qualified people are needed – especially those with a master’s degree – to work in hospitals, long-term care facilities, clinics, [and] education.” A career in nursing informatics does not typically involve direct patient care. Newbold stated that although she misses certain aspects of working with patients, she sees her role as a nursing informatics educator as reaching many more patients than she could in her previous job. “Currently, our competencies in informatics are much broader than after I worked as a nurse manager in a 40-bed unit or after I worked as a night manager in a 478-bed hospital,” she said.

Certification: Optional, but helpful in your job search

According to Newbold, obtaining a certificate in nursing informatics is optional, nevertheless it gives nurses applying for jobs on this field a precious advantage within the hiring process. The certification review course prepares nurses to take the nursing informatics certification exam, but nurses who wish to grow to be certified aren’t the one ones taking it, she added. Some nurses have limited experience on this field and wish to learn more about careers or find out how to get entangled in IT positions of their facilities.

Labor force statistics and meeting demand

As the demand for nursing informatics increases, it is useful to know the demographics of the specialty, in addition to how nursing professionals perceive and value different facets of their roles. According to HIMSS 2020 Nursing Informatics Workforce Survey of 1,359 respondents, including nurse informaticians with and without certificates:

• 49% indicated they earn greater than $100,000 annually, a slight increase from the 2017 survey (45%).
• 21% reported their salaries ranged from $86,000 to $100,000, and 23% said they earned between $61,000 and $85,000 per 12 months.
• 68% of them worked in a hospital, and just over half of them are employed in Magnet-designated hospitals.
• 51% said they were satisfied or very satisfied with their current position, and over 75% said they were satisfied or very satisfied with their profession alternative.
• 68% had no supervisory role and nobody reported to them.

Respondents’ responsibilities included systems implementation, systems utilization/optimization, systems development, and quality initiatives/reporting. Other survey respondent demographics included:

• 66% had postgraduate education.
• 30% had a master’s or doctoral degree in nursing.
• Nearly half (49%) of respondents are currently pursuing an IT certification.

In recent HIMSS surveys from 2017 and 2020, respondents indicated that point, lack of economic resources, and the worth of certification in a given field were the most important barriers to certification. This modified from previous research, which found that key barriers were lack of management support and maintaining continuing education requirements. The increased demand for nursing informaticians shows how necessary this specialty is within the nursing occupation. Their innovation, attention to detail and data management help deliver safer and more positive outcomes for patients and nursing staff. Prepare for the Nursing Informatics (RN-BC) exam with Nurse.com’s RN-BC(R) certification test prep course. This online nursing informatics certification review course is designed to suit your personal schedule and timetable and includes the newest nursing informatics certification requirements. Nursing informatics supports nurses, patients, the interprofessional health care team, and other stakeholders in making decisions across all health care settings to attain desired outcomes. This course provides a greater understanding of the impact of nursing informatics and technology on the standard of patient care. This course examines the role of the nurse informaticist (commonly known as nurse informaticist) and its evolution over time. Additionally, the course describes the didactic preparation and qualifications that nurses pursuing this specialization can obtain. Editor’s note: This post was originally published in September 2019 and has been updated with recent content.