Nursing Informatics Is Here To Stay - Are You Ready To Lead The Way

The day is fast approaching where the nursing informatics and health informatics will become even more intertwined.

Soon the identity and medical history/condition of a person will be available to a doctor, nurse or an emergency medical team by scanning a person's bio-metric medical card.

The day will come sooner than we realize when a person's identity will be verified instantly and his or her medical info retrieved by scanning a person's fingerprint, eye or even their DNA makeup. 

From the moment the EMS team out in the field takes control of a person requiring medical attention, data about the patient taken from his or her bio-metric medical card or by the means listed above will be transferred via wireless informatic health systems back to the hospital emergency team.

The hospital emergency team will know the medical history of the patient before the patient's stretcher ever enters the emergency room.

Various hospital departments via the patient's bio-metric medical card will know about:

• Blood Type
• Allergies to Medicines
• Existing Medical Conditions
• Previous Surgeries
• Present Medications
• Insurance Information 

Depending on the current medical problem associated with the potential patient as indicated by the EMS team on-site, the power of the hospital's informatics systems will be busy transmitting data to various intra-informatic systems such as the nursing informatics system.

Just think, patient information traveling the informatic system could notify nurses to have a room ready, have dieticians planning meals more accurately to meet the patient's needs, ensure pharmacy staffs have a specific type medicine for say a diabetic available and give inventory specialists better control in ordering supplies for the hospital.

From the main hospital information system, there will be the various electronic data arteries like the nursing informatics system used to connect and store the massive volume of data presently traveling wildly and blindly across a hospital's current data network.

Sooner than most health professionals realize, registered nurses will be utilizing PDA's with cell phone capability and electronic note tablets to harness the power of the nursing informatic system.

Instead of running back to the nurses station all the time to manage the patients under your care, your now "can't do without" electronic data devices will pull up a patient's data and even notify you when specifics tasks need to be accomplished.

The scenarios described above are taking place now in small steps in hospitals across America in preparation for the major push in patient data storage and data utilization coming soon.

Hospital management will be looking for the nursing talent to help design then train nurses within the hospital to utilize the power of the informatics systems.

Are You Ready To Be The Nursing Informatics Specialist 

While hospital management teams will hire IT persons with computer science and information science experience, they will seriously looking for registered nurses who can take and blend their nursing science knowledge and experience with the two disciplines above to take the lead in operating the nursing informatics system for the hospital.

In fact, hospitals will pay licensed registered nurses more if they also have the training and certification in computer science and information science as informatics specialists. The average pay for a Nursing Informatics Specialist as of 2007 was $83,675.

Are you the registered nurse who has the ability to understand the power and combined synergy of nursing science, computer science and information science to manage and communicate data, information, and knowledge in nursing practice?

Do you want to be the nursing informatics specialist for the hospital who helped evaluate the workflow process and implications to influence the system design?

Will you be the registered nurse who helped optimize the information / communication tools to make it easier for the nurses to use while also addressing integration / interoperability issues with hospital management?

How Do You Become A Certified Nursing Informatics Specialist

Many universities are offering nursing informatics training at the Bachelors and Graduate Levels within a Nursing degree program or a degree specifically as a Nursing Informatics Specialist.

Once you have met the nursing degree education requirements, informatics training and registered nurse requirements; you can sit for the certification test.

Certification as a nurse informatics specialist is given by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) by holding a current active RN License with 2 full years of practice completed, required course work completed, have specific experience and/or completed required continuing education classes.

Verify your state does not require additional or different certification requirements than those of ANCC.

Verify the current American Nurses Credentialing Center certification requirements by visiting their web site.

Can You Use A Nursing Informatics Degree in Business, Industry and Government

Business and Industry is on the hunt for Nursing Informatics Specialists with active RN Licenses to help design and get their electronic data and communication systems into hospitals around the world.

To build electronic health record systems and develop synergies between electronic data/communication systems, Business and Industry need project management teams, system development teams, analysts and teams to implement the systems which includes training nurses.

Nursing Informatics Consultants to Business and Industry are known to average $200K or more in fees.

Government entities around the world, and specifically the United States government, are in need of trained Nursing Informatics Specialists to work in the numerous public health agencies that include VA hospitals and agencies that monitor hospitals.

Get Started Today!

A registered nurse or a person willing to become one can add to their personal job security plan by training to become a Nursing Informatics Specialist.

A registered nurse with the training and special talent to understand the power waiting to be harnessed from merging nursing science, computer science and information science will be in high demand for years to come.