jobs in informatics

ikarus01 · Dec 26, 2013

Hi everyone,
Trying to find out a little more about nursing IT and informatics! Once you get a MSN in informatics what types of positions are those employed in?

This really depends on your previous experience in the field and what you want to do.

We have interviewed a few candidates with master's and little or no experience and these candidates are applying for an analyst position, which is really a generic position and you get to do a bit of everything----training, implementing, troubleshooting, rollouts/golives, etc.

Some of these positions can even be specialized...for example, you can be a trainer and your job would be to train others in an application, or you can even just be a testing analyst and your job will be to come up with test cases, etc. Really depends on the job you're applying for, but I think most people go for the analyst position as described before which also covers what you might like to do, which seems to be implementation/training.

Those who have experience in the field maybe want to be leaders and they go for the management positions but you don't have to go for those if you don't like that type of position.

I work with colleagues who have masters' in informatics and they are happy being analysts and don't want to go into management. And a couple I know have carved their own roles, so the beauty about informatics is that if you're good at what you do, you sometimes get to choose even your own job title. :)

And that leads me to answer your final query, which is, no, most positions are not management positions.

MissRN11 · Dec 27, 2013

Thank you so much for the great info! The way you describe it I am def thinking that the analyst is more of what I have in mind. Any ideas of what kind of salary that position makes? Also, some posts are taking about crazy long hours is that something you would see in a analyst position? I really appreciate the reply- I have found I love using a computer system, feeling like an expert, and being able to help and guide others!

ikarus01 · Dec 27, 2013

Any ideas of what kind of salary that position makes?

Salary depends in many factors, experience (obviously), where you live, size of hospital, and even the solution you're working with, not to also mention your ability to negotiate.

Is not fair to say you'll go out and make at least so much money because like I said, so many factors influence salary.

Just as a quick example, I've interviewed for jobs in the same city in hospitals that were across from each other, and the salary difference for a similar position was 15k. Kind of crazy, and that's why is really difficult to give you a specific number. But ranges I've seen go from 55k to six salary numbers. The more experience you have, the more you might make, but again, might depend on the solution and your skills.

Also, some posts are taking about crazy long hours is that something you would see in a analyst position?

As they say, mileage may vary because of many factors (surprise, surprise). You might be hired to use an application that you never used before in a department that you don't know much about, so now you'll have to spend a lot of time training yourself not only on the application, but on the workflow of that department.

Maybe you're the type of person that grasps concepts quickly so you might not spend as much time learning stuff, but maybe you're the type that you have to get a feeling of how things work before you can visualize how all falls together.

Also, there are cycles in projects. Some parts are slow, like data gathering for example, and others like testing and troubleshooting might take longer, so you might need longer hours to solve an issue.

Also, during a go live you might be asked to work 12 hour shifts on the weekend, and then a consultant doesn't show up so now you need to come 2 consecutive days instead of one....

I know colleagues that take work home and they will send out emails at 11pm, while others, once they leave the office, they are done for the day, unless they are on call.

Thus, as you can see, hard to generalize. In the end for me though, everything balances out and if you have a good workplace, they will even give you comp time if you work long hours.

Bottom line, yes, you might see long hours, but is also not something that will happen every week day in, day out. And if it does, then there is something wrong with how you work, or something wrong with your employer.

Alnitak7 · Dec 31, 2013

http://www.ahima.org/education

I found this website helpful

ikarus01 · Dec 31, 2013

Education
I found this website helpful

This will probably raise more questions with those learning about informatics, as the link is about AHIMA but rninformatics wrote a post on this, which I'll leave below in case people start wondering what's the different between nursing informatics and health information management:

https://allnurses.com/nursing-informatics/health-information-mgt-380211.html?list=faqs