Getting Experience In Nurse Informatics

[RN2365]

Hello All Fellow RNs!

I am a fairly new RN with just over a year of low level experience and now I am starting to work in an ICU. I plan on working in an ICU for a few years, but I already have begun to think about pursuing to get my masters degrees. I have always had an interest in technology, and recently, the hospital I work at started using EPIC. Sadly, I regret not being an EPIC superuser. I gravitate towards wanting to improve the electronic medical record system and being a part of that process. That being said, I am very interested in the field of Nurse Informatics. Naturally, I was assuming I should start the MSN Nurse informatics degree, however, after reading several posts on here, experience seems to trump the degree. So my question is, how can I start acquiring such experience? A job? Volunteering? Where? Would it be too early to start the MSN degree?

[mmc51264, BSN, MSN, RN]

Become a super user. I did. We have monthly meetings and I did not start out as a super user. I just learned as much as I could, picked the brains of anyone that had knowledge. We have an IT help line for issues, I call them all the time for issues and ask them to help me troubleshoot over the phone. I work on an ortho floor and I just keep learning as much as I can. I work with the diabetes educator and she has done some great things with careplans and education documenting. And auditing. I have learned how to run reports. Anything that you can get someone to teach you, you will get better. I have no formal experience, but you can learn a lot along the way. I know out organization is always looking for people to help onboard new help and they offer classes to us to become trainers (thus super users). Look into that.

I may not understand everything, but I give updates about what is coming up and help those that are computer challenged. All of this has helped me to decide that I want to formally switch to this. My program is part time, so I can work as I learn and learn as I work.