The days of paper charts hanging from the end of beds in hospitals are long gone. Nursing informatics was deemed a specialty by the American Nurses Association in the early 1990s and has since transformed our healthcare system. Technology has only advanced since then, giving us electronic health records, diagnostics, and treatment plans informed by data analysis.
One of the fastest-growing and essential subspecialties in health care, nursing informatics is a discipline focused on managing electronic health records and information systems. This blog answers the question, “What is an informatics nurse?” and focuses on how these nurses improve the quality of healthcare — plus how you can start your career in this subspecialty.
Let’s dive in.
What is nursing informatics?
As defined by the American Nurses Association and the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), nursing informatics is “the specialty that integrates nursing science with multiple information and analytical sciences to identify, define, manage and communicate data, information, knowledge, and wisdom in nursing practice.”
Nursing informatics fulfills a vital role in health care, striving to facilitate the unique job responsibilities of nurses through enhanced health IT methods and software tools. When we’re capable of handling the enormous amount of data that our healthcare systems provide, we can use those insights to make long-term improvements – from helping to prevent the spread of disease to ensuring compliance to coordinating care across multiple specialists.
What does an informatics nurse do?
As an informatics nurse, you bridge the gap between data and nursing practice by identifying, defining, and sharing data, information, and knowledge within the science of nursing. The three main responsibilities of an informatics nurse are to:
- understand and communicate the “why” behind new processes,
- implement new processes or technology,
- and validate the data.
An informatics nurse may carry the job title of clinical analyst, nurse informaticist, or clinical information system specialist. Whatever the title, the day-to-day responsibilities of an informatics nurse center around providing quality care for patients guided by data and technology. According to the 2020 Nursing Informatics Workforce Survey, 68% of nurse informaticists work at a hospital or within a health system. The daily tasks vary, and often, no two days are the same.
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How do informatics nurse specialists interact with other professionals?
As a nurse informaticist, you’ll work alongside other clinical staff members to ensure proper implementation and use of patient record and health care information systems. A nurse informaticist is often responsible for ensuring that record-keeping takes place in compliance with regulatory requirements and that all nursing staff are trained to use the information system as accurately and efficiently as possible. In addition to those responsibilities, nurse informaticists work with software and hardware vendors and IT teams to ensure all systems are fully operational.
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Day-to-day Differences in Role Responsibilities |
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“Typical” Nursing |
Nursing Informatics |
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While both jobs have the goal of providing quality patient care while simultaneously improving healthcare systems, their approaches differ, as the informatics nurse engages in a high-tech operational capacity.
How does nursing informatics improve the quality of healthcare?
With robust data and ever-evolving technology at our disposal, nursing informatics continues to improve the quality of healthcare by studying and managing information. According to Electronic Health Reporter, nursing informatics improves healthcare in several key ways:
1. Improved Documentation
Modern nursing care centers around the history and care of patients' needs. Having an efficient EMR system to collect and organize information is critical. With the adaptation of the Internet of Things and connected devices, much of the documentation takes place automatically and results in having all information in a centralized location.
2. Improved Coordination of Care
Quality of care suffers when care providers don’t have all the necessary information from the multidisciplinary team members. It’s the role of the nurse to keep it all together – and informatics helps to streamline this process. When nurses are trained in this technology and learn how to best incorporate it into their workflow, they’re more productive and able to provide better care.
3. Reduction in Medication ErrorsRemember the days of having to ask the patient at every visit about their allergies and documenting it numerous times in various places? Just as technology has provided a centralized ‘home’ for a patient’s allergy listing, it has also eased the process of prescribing and administering medications. Technology and informatics have reduced the errors in medication by involving information systems such as computerized physician order entry, computerized physician decision support, robots for filling prescriptions, barcoding, automated dispensing devices, and computerization of the medication administration record.
While the best medication process will never replace the actual nurse or the others involved, it will utilize the strengths of informatics and technology, allowing people to do what they do best – complex decision-making and communication.
4. Reduction of Bias in Data Science
Healthcare professionals need to be able to trust that the decisions they make day-to-day for both their patients and their staff are based on reliable, objective data. However, necessary data can often be tainted by racial and gender bias. With this knowledge in mind, nursing informatics nurses can aid in uncovering and combatting bias in data science.
How to become an informatics nurse
If you’re interested in a career improving the processes and systems used across the healthcare industry, consider returning to school for an MSN in Nursing Informatics. MSN Nursing Informatics programs, like the one at the University of San Diego Hahn School of Nursing and Health Science, prepare future informatics nurses for HIMSS-specific industry certifications. USD has been a leader in graduate nursing for over 40 years, and our 45-unit program (offered both full-time and part-time) prepares you for one of the fastest-growing specialized areas in nursing and health care.
Our MSN in Nursing Informatics program provides you with the leadership skills required to integrate research into practice. With your degree in hand, we’ll support and empower you through board certification as a Nursing Informaticist through the Academic Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC).
If you’re looking for the right nursing informatics program for you, look no further than the University of San Diego School of Nursing.
