Informatics for the physician office?

[trein]

I Work for a physician office that is a branch of the hospital which has many physician specialties. I am thinking about getting a certificate in informatics and working for the medical office group. Is this even a thing? Are there jobs in nursing informatics in the outpatient environment?

[SHGR, MSN, RN, CNS]

Informatics are being used more and more in the outpatient setting but I think it's more that it is a part of a lot of different people's standard work now- not one specific person. IT builds the templates (with minimal clinician input, sadly) but building and running reports is done by many.

If you really love it though and are not getting on-the-job training for it, then you might wish to pursue extra training or certification.

[thefacilitator]

Hi trein,

I agree with hey_suz - certifications/certificates only help to bolster your resume where there are opportunities. So, if you are looking to maximize your return-on-investment, make sure you scope out the opportunities first.

On the other hand, you never know when an opportunity will show up - it may pay to be prepared regardless of what the current job market looks like - unfortunately, it's a chance you'll have to decide whether to take or not :)

All the best!

[SHGR, MSN, RN, CNS]

It would probably actually be better for you to find out how your practice is using the EMR (some of the behind-the-scenes things). Do you use registries? Do you have a superuser or is there a need for one? If you have the opportunity to do something EMR related, can you just do it really well and make sure someone notices? That's what I did, then I had the chance to go to a training, did really well and next thing you know, I get to do some...really cool stuff. It started small. I don't have a certificate in informatics, but I did the particular training for a system that we use, and became a go-to person.