National Nurses Week (May 6th-12th) and Nursing Informatics Day May 12th

Reflection on National Nurses Week (May 6th-12th)

National Nurses Week is celebrated each year to honor those women and
men who have chosen the nursing profession as a career and to highlight
the many and diverse ways that nurses contribute to the betterment of
patient care. You may additionally know that nursing is the largest of
the health care professions and there are more than 2.9 million
registered nurses practicing in the United States.

Nurses share their talents in diverse settings and many choose to
specialize their practice and expertise in highly defined areas or types
of patient care. One of the newest, and rapidly growing of these
nursing areas is Nursing Informatics. As envisioned by the International
Medical Informatics Association - Nursing Informatics Special Interest
Group, "Nursing informatics is the integration of nursing, its
information, and information management with information processing and
communication technology, to support the health of people world wide."
(Adopted August 1998, Seoul, Korea)

I am circulating the flyer(see attachment or link below)to help educate
the larger nursing community that May 12th has been designated Nursing
Informatics Day by the American Nurses Association. It is no coincidence that
May 12th was chosen for this day as it is the day of Florence Nightingale's birthday.
Florence is probably the first noted nurse to gather, analyze and interpret
data for meaningful improvements on care environments and how care was delivered
to patients. Florence was our first Informatics Nurse!!!

Please share the flyer (linked below and attached) with any colleagues, nursing groups,
or interested parties that have a desire to understand and learn more
about this exciting and expanding area of our profession. Also please
feel free to direct any questions about Nursing Informatics to your very
own certified Informatics Nurse - me!

Have a GREAT National Nurses Week!

http://www.himss.org/handouts/NIAwareDayFlyer.pdf