What Is Nursing Informatics?

Just 10 years ago if someone had told you their job title was a Nursing Informatics Clinical Project Manager or Clinical Informatics Specialist you probably would have starred at them and said “What?” This specialty in nursing has exploded over the past decade and will continue to grow as nursing moves into the information technology world.

What is Nursing Informatics?

The informatics nurse is someone who is involved in activities that focus on the methods and technologies of information for nurses, combining information science, computer science, and health care to create resources, devices, and methods required to optimize the securing, storage, retrieval and use of information in healthcare. This helps nurses to manage data effectively in the direct care of patients/clients.

What do nurses working in informatics do?

Their job responsibilities vary- they can include being a project manager, health information manager, helping or designing the software for nurses, educating nurses on how to use the software/program, writing training programs or implementing the clinical information systems for an organization. HIMSS and the American Nurses Informatics websites are two great places to go that will provides information on Nurse Informatics role, career guide, associations, project management center and much more.

Jobs in Health IT

• Acute care facilities
• Long Term Care organizations
• Private Companies or Vendors
• Education/Training programs
• Self employed as an independent contractor in several different areas (just to name a few) – software designer, educator or writing continuing education or courses and consulting.

Here is a list of some job titles you may see that are a Nursing Informatics (NI) job.

• Implementation Specialist
• Clinical Analyst
• Project Manager
• RN – Information Systems
• Nurse Specialist Informatics
• Nurse Clinical Consultant
• Systems Analyst

Salaries

Salaries start at $60,000 in Long Term Care facilities to $127,000 in Consulting. I see this field having great potential for nurse entrepreneurs.

If you have a background in HI technology and are interested in this field than Go for It! With the health care industry going to Electronic Health Records Nursing Informatics will continue to grow and be in high demand.

Nurses will be the best resource for this new age of technology.

They will play a huge role in Healthcare reform, developing the software we use and the equipment that is so important to our profession and the safety of our patients/clients. The more nurses learn about this new technology the better it will be to do our jobs effectively.