How much computer experience should I have?

Specialties Informatics

Published

Specializes in Float Pool, acute care, management/leadership.

Hi everyone, I'm interested in nursing informatics and have always enjoyed bridging the gap between health care and technology, moreover I've always enjoyed working with computers, figuring out how to do things in Cerner or Epic, etc.

My concern is how much programming or coding should I know? Is there much of it in nursing informatics? I took an intro to programming class my first year of college prior to choosing nursing and I was terrible at it. It could have been just where I was mentally at the time since it was 10+ years ago, but I really want to make sure I know what this field entails before I commit to grad school, etc. Thanks!

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Specializes in Float Pool, acute care, management/leadership.

Actually, just did some searching on this forum (which I should have done first).

As has been repeated over and over in this forum, best thing you can do is actually gain informatics experience through your current job. In fact, I personally would recommend that over wasting time or money over a certificate.

As far as computer courses---you have to also be aware that the usual informatics job doesn't don't do much programming, or database maintenance unless you are interested in that area of informatics.

Thus, to answer your question, my question to you would be, are you interested i a programmer/developer job or in a database administration type of job? Or do you want to be an implementer of applications in the field. This latter job doesn't require you to have much computer science courses under your belt. In fact, I think most master's degrees in informatics just have an intro to programming class and 1 or 2 database courses.

Also, you can teach yourself a programming language or databases. Long ago I taught myself C, and then while in school I learned C++, Java, and then taught myself PHP, but have never used programming for my informatics jobs. I have however used a lot of my database skills, but you can also learn SQL on your own.

If anyone has other input, that would be great. Thanks!

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No, you do not need to know how to do programming or coding to work as a nurse in IT/IS. Most Nurse Informaticists or Clinical Nurse Analysts are either focused in being a trainer/educator or builder/implementation of EMR systems. The need for nurses in IT is to use our knowledge and experience of hospital workflows, clinical processes, and terminology to help design or build the EMR system and/or coordinate and be a liaison between clinicians and IT. However, nurses working in IT are not just limited to these types of roles. IT is so broad it really is up to you on where you eventually would like to end up, and there are so many opportunities for nurses in healthcare IT. A very smart thing to do is to connect with your Informatics/IT department and become a superuser for them and participate in their meetings to expose yourself to what they actually do. Many hiring managers are now looking for people to join their team who have some experience in this area already. Best of luck!

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I didn't have any IT background I was a super user but that's it. It's a lot to learn and your company will send you for training

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