Analytics RN wondering what my next move is.

[koki]

Hi,

I am a RN/MPH(biostats) with 4 years clinical, 2 years homecare and 2 years analytic/QA/informatics experience. I currently work in the analytics/reporting department of a small community hospital in NYC. As such, I wear man different hats including managing quality metric /Hedis/DSRIP reporting, ad-hoc SQL report writing, project management for a HIE, tableau dashboard design. Most of my time I am interfacing with MDs/administration to hash out specs/reports.

I'm trained in allscripts config, which helped me learn the allscripts databases, but i do not have much practical experience in config.

I am thinking of a move and was wondering what other nurses have gone on to do who have similar professional experience. I'd like to get involved with internet of things and maybe work for a companies whose product I really believe in. Love my job over my former clinical life, but begin to feel constrained in a hospital job. Was wondering what people have gone into? Has anyone gone into the private world or worked for a startup? If you have similar experience what are you currently doing?

Any assistance is appreciated!

[ikarus01]

Started to consult on my own and that was fun since was pulled into different projects, different vendors.

All I did was put information on different job sites and then had recruiters called me for short term jobs, and eventually had a short list of clients that needed me for specific things.

Maybe you can try that? And yep, if you can stop working full time for hospitals, that could be fun; however, I know colleagues who do the full time hospital gig because of the insurance benefits for their families. So in that regards, maybe a hospital/stable job is best.

[koki]

Thanks so much for your reply. Out of curiousily what kind of consulting work do you or did you do? Config?

[ikarus01]

Workflow analysis, configuration, training, testing, training setup, go-live support, data extractions...i mean, really, what I used to do full time, but in short term assignments. Of course, the downside is that sometimes you finish an assignment and you have nothing lined up. But then suddenly I get a call and all is good again. You could then try to find longer assignments, which is possible, but then that becomes like a full time job....

[tsbarbre]

This is interesting as I never considered consulting as a future career option. Do you guys go to college for healthcare informatics or just learn from experience? I currently have a job in healthcare informatics and was considering going for MSN in nursing informatics but I don't think I would get the level of IT knowledge you are discussing.

[ikarus01]

Personally, I learned everything with experience. There are some jobs in management that require you to have a master's degree, but because I'm not into management, so far haven't felt the need to get a master's degree and so far nobody has really forced me to get one.

Some consulting jobs are really what I did in my full time job, they are just shorter assignments. For whatever reason, a hospital needs a contractor to get it done.

[RJMJ87]

Hi Koki,

I would like to learn more of what you do.

I've been an informatics/IT nurse for the past 5 years mainly focusing on workflow and system analysis, design, implementation, upgrades as well as data management and assisting with interoperability between systems. I also have done consulting. I am planning to focus more on the other spectrum of informatics, which is in the data sciences and learning/researching the applicability of natural language processing and machine learning in analyzing healthcare data to predict disease, risk, and outcomes utilizing the large amounts of data from EMRs. This route will need an understanding of statistics, mathematics, and programming. I am in the process of pursuing a PhD.