Backgruond?

perseus29 · Mar 28, 2006

I also wonder what the average tenure is for an informatics nurse?

what do you mean by tenure?

Mijourney · Mar 31, 2006

what do you mean by tenure?

Thanks. What I mean is what is the average length of time that a nurse stays in the informatics field at the computerside?

perseus29 · Apr 3, 2006

Thanks. What I mean is what is the average length of time that a nurse stays in the informatics field at the computerside?

ahhh..well, dont know where the statistics would be for that.

jjjoy, LPN · Apr 3, 2006

Perseus29 wrote:

"As for myself, I love the job cause it gives you the opportunity to interact with all types of people; also, i get to solve technical problems that i never did when i was a nurse---in my case i like dabbling with databases, comparing data, writing quick scripts to get me what i need, and troubleshooting the software etc. I also love reading the technical functionalities, and coming up with ways of breaking the software. So my job gives me a balance to interact with people, and it also lets me have my quiet time where i can solve problems."

This sounds appealing to me. I enjoy manipulating databases, what little bit of opportunity I have for it. I worked on a community health program and currently work with health information (indexing to be exact) and play with the databases when I can to see trends, what we might be systematically missing, etc. I consider ways we might capture other info or how might use data we already have. That's not my job but I'm always curious about such things. I much prefer my computer/office job to clinical nursing and being able to take time to systematically problem solve (vs the thinking on one's feet of clinical nursing). However, I would enjoy more people interaction, especially explaining things or helping to figure things out.

I've considered nursing informatics but it's rather slippery field - that is no distinct job description or educational path. I've got a BSN, by the way.

I've considered taking some computer science courses on the side to see how I like that and how I perform, but there are so many different courses and no definite order. Some schools suggest starting with programming. Some schools have database administration programs. I probably should get an appointment with a computer science advisor at a university. I just don't know what my goals would be, exactly, so am afraid they'd tell me come back when I had a more defined career goal besides "well, I've got a background and interest in health care and enjoy playing with databases."

Could you give any advice? More specifically, could you recommend any actions to help decide if pursuing a computer science degree would be useful? Is there are any specific computer science coursework that could be useful in determining if that's a direction to head? Did you enjoy the coursework? Do you use what you learned in your comp sci program? Would you have any advice on the differences between a general comp sci degree and a specific health informatics degree?

-Midget- · Apr 4, 2006

I've noticed that, too, that there is no specific educational path for Informatics. I've read about programs that offer a masters in Nursing Infomratics, and the school here has a Masters in Medical Informatics. Good luck in your search for information...you've come to the right place. There are some great people here to give you answers. :)

perseus29 · Apr 4, 2006

Could you give any advice? More specifically, could you recommend any actions to help decide if pursuing a computer science degree would be useful? Is there are any specific computer science coursework that could be useful in determining if that's a direction to head? Did you enjoy the coursework? Do you use what you learned in your comp sci program? Would you have any advice on the differences between a general comp sci degree and a specific health informatics degree?

Take a database class. All systems have data data data and more data. Knowing the concepts of a database is essential and the fact that you like working with databases should make this easier.

And like most jobs, nursing informatics might not have a specific job description, but it all revolves around taking all the clinical data that for years has been put in paper, somehow storing it in a computer (databases again), and then trying to take advantage of all that electronic information, and processing, to try to improve nursing knowledge, care.

What does that all really mean? Since i work with hospitals, I will relate it to my experience. A Hospital decides that they want to stop documenting nursing information on paper, and they want to make it electronic. Let's assume the emergergency room in that hospital wants to go paperless and start docucumenting using computers. The hospital finds a vendor that has such software; they buy it and also to implement it, they will have to hire experts of that software (known as consultants) to come help them implement that application in the hospital. At the same time, the hospital will have to have their own employees learn how the software works, so that they can run it, once the consultants are gone.

In terms of job, at a basic level, this is what it all means: The software vendor will have sales people that will go to the hospital and try to sell software and labor to the hospital; those who like sales, can go into that area. Once is all sold, then the vendor sends out a couple of people---possibly known as the project manager/chief informatics lead or whatever the role is called, and these people have a few years of experience implementing the software of managing the implementation of the software, and their job is to come up with a project timeline of when certain aspects of the project need to be done.

From the hospital side you might have the equivalent, and those people will be in charged of agreeing with the timelines and making sure they have the appropriate number of people to get involved with the project; so as you can see, once you have years of experience you can go the route of project management, and this is mainly for people that like to be leaders, love to come up with deadlines, manage resources, etc. To get all these work done, then you have the software vendor 'consultants' that come to the hospital, gather all possible data related to how the emergency department wants to run the software, what reports/data they would like to see capture, what processes are in place, etc. Then once that is completed the same people or others, take that data, and configure the software according to the requirements that the department gave; at the same time, they have to trai the hospital IT staff on how to use and how to configure the system.

The role I just spoke about, can maybe be done by one person, or maybe more; for example, you have an interface person that deals with how the data is sent across different systems; maybe the emergency department charges for items used in the department, and the hospital has a billing system that is made by another software vendor; somehow these two softwares now have to communite; so there is the role of the interface analyst/architect and this role is very IT; however, I've met nurses that had a great IT background and they do this role; there is also the person that trains users, troubleshoots the software, desings new processes for the hospital based on the software, etc. then the manager of the ED comes and says, now that we have all these data, i want to run reports to see different metrics, so those that know database and queries, can do this job. Bottomline, so many roles, so many jobs, you can't really nail down with one description what an informatics nurse will do. And this is example is just at the hospital level; there could those at the doctor's office, or maybe thoseworking as liasons between a vendor and a specific device, etc.

Like you, I have a BS in nursing, and i went back to school and got a comp sci degree; however, when i went back to school, I didn'tknow much about informatics; i wanted to do the business side of the computing world, but because i had a lot of sciences and math done in my undergrad years, they advised me that it would take me a lot less time to get a comp sci degree than an MIS/CIS degree. When I graduated I got an IT job not related to healthcare. HOwever, let me tell you that I'm not a programmer; i did ok in my classes but I hated programming!!! :))) i loved databases or data mining as some call it, but sitting at a desk and programming, I can't do it. :)

With this mind my advice to you would be, definetely take a database class; intro, and maybe the next course after the intro course. You can reduce informatics to the collection and analysis of data. And what do you need for that? Database knowledge; so please take this class. then i would advise you to take an intro class to programming; maybe c sharp or java; even if you don tlike it, you will have a better appreciation for the software. Another class that I highly recommend, but you cannot really take in most schools, unless you have some other prereqs completed, is software engineering. This class goes over the whole software cycle, and is something good to know. In fact most projects revolve about this cycle.

As I have said many other times, if you have a nursing degree, and you want to get into the computer side of it, then go to a hospital that has computerized records already in place, and see if you can get into the IT teams; i have been in 6-7 hospitals and they pull nurses that have no clue what an excel sheet is, and they tell them, 'we're gonna be using such and such software, since you are in this dept, we need you to learn it so that u can train others'; so if i were you, i would start asking and finding out how u can get involved; maybe you can start as a software trainer within the hospital and dig deeper into the system and go from there.

Toyour other specific questions---I didn't really enjoy my comp sci courses because it was mainly hardware programming and software programming; I got my assignments done, but really, I couldnt stand it. The only classes that I really enjoyed were my database class, and my intro programming classes; as the course work got deeper, programming became more serious, and it was no fun! :) But you might like that.

Yes, I have used what I learned in comp sci; however, I can tell you that what i use is databases, the concepts learned in software engineering, and i do little programming, but I know enough that if i want to automate a process to get data, I can write a small script to get it done; however, I dont think i'm using all those comp sci programming courses I took! :)

A comp sci degree is more specific to computer software/hardware; you take classes like intro to programming, data structures, operating system programming (hated this class); assembly language, networks, computer architecture (horrible class) :) ; automata theory, etc; as you can see, is really geared towards hardware/software knowledge.

Informatics on the other hand from what I'm told are courses that might have classes like database and intro to programming, and classes that concentrate on health related specific aspects of data gathering, etc. Since i dont have a degree on that, i cant give you details; but I speak to people that have that degree and it seemed that they did more pertinent stuff related to what I do; however, I also work with people that have a literature degree, a marketing degree, a business degree, and they do just as well! :) however, i will say it again: I insist you take a database class. :) any other doubts feel free to ask!

jjjoy, LPN · Apr 4, 2006

Thanks for your detailed response! I've got some research to do, don't I? Like finding out what kinds of database courses are offered locally, if there are wait lists or pre-reqs for such classes. I've done a bit a looking at computer coursework before but there are so many different angles to take that I got stuck. With your advice, I'll narrow my focus to database courses for now and see what I can come up with - hopefully I can find some local night/evening extension courses. When I've got that info, I'll probably have more questions! I'll stick around this board and glean what I can meanwhile.

I really appreciate your detailed decriptions of possible different roles in Health-related IT.

You described

"then the manager of the ED comes and says, now that we have all these data, i want to run reports to see different metrics, so those that know database and queries, can do this job."

This type of work sounds appealing to me.

You also described

"To get all these work done, then you have the software vendor 'consultants' that come to the hospital, gather all possible data related to how the emergency department wants to run the software, what reports/data they would like to see capture, what processes are in place, etc. Then once that is completed the same people or others, take that data, and configure the software according to the requirements that the department gave; at the same time, they have to trai the hospital IT staff on how to use and how to configure the system."

I don't know enough about this to really say if I'd like that. But I know I'm not into the sales side of things. So at least I'm clear on something! Thanks again!

perseus29 · Apr 4, 2006

Are you always working with a team, or alone?

of course, always always always in a team!

-Midget- · Apr 17, 2006

As always, perseus29, provides wonderful information to all us curious folks again! Thank you once again for more incight into the world of Informatics. :)

EdBSN09 · Apr 30, 2006

Very interesting thread. I'm interested in pursuing infomatics as my specialty, as well. After I graduate nursing school, I'm going to go to the local public university and go for a computer science degree. My hospital is getting ready to implement computerized charting, though, so maybe I can get a foot into the door of the I.S. department now. Can't hurt to ask!