Life/Career at a Crossroads

[Macbs4]

My career had been on hold this past year being a full-time caregiver. Now that I'm in the job market again, I'd like to pursue IT/informatics. Would like your advice regarding "my chances" of obtaining a job in this field based on my background and experience. I would like to avoid the costs of pursuing a masters degree or certificate at this time, but I'm not opposed to it if that's what it takes.

I have a B.S. in Business Management and working in IT for 22 years starting as a programmer, and working my way up to positions as a business analyst, project manager, and department manager. I've worked in a variety of business environments - have worked on teams doing software conversions, new software implementations - you name it - just not in the health care environment.

I changed careers in 2009 and have worked as a BSN RN for 3 years in med-surg. I do like helping people but the hospital environment is very stressful at times, and my body is tired after the 12-hour shifts.

I would really appreciate your constructive feedback and suggestions regarding how to enter the informatics field.

[newrnltc]

you sound like you have a good foundation for informatics! I think your chances of obtaining a job depends on your location. as you know some places a saturated with rns even at the master's level. on the good side, there are online programs for informatics. perhaps you can hang onto your medsurg job and see if they can transition you to it when you obtain your degree. it's always easier to get a job when you have a job. good luck!

[ikarus01]

Are you currently working in a med surg floor that uses an electronic medical record? Are you or have you participated as a super user? Or have you been involved in so called user groups/nursing informatics groups (different hospitals call it differently) where floor nurses voice their opinions as to what would make the EMR better? If so, the best to way to get a job in the field, is to get involved in these activities, and then use that experience and apply for informatics jobs.

However, given that you already have IT experience, I would actually concentrate on creating a resume that bridges both fields together (IT and nursing). That would be my next step. Create the resume, post it on different sites, and see what comes out of it. You can easily get jobs as a trainer, but recruiters need to know you exist. But really, given your past experience, I myself wouldn't waste the money on a master's degree unless eventually you want to go the management route.

Years back, I had IT experience, I had nursing experience, and what I did was have a professional create a resume that presented both experiences, and that's how I ended up getting a job in the field.

[mariafh]

I would say you have a good chance, but you may actually have a better chance getting a job with a vendor. Your business and development background make your an attractive candidate for that type of positions such as in business analyst, support, software quality, learning products, project mgmt, product marketing, etc. Vendors of healthcare IT would prefer to hire clinicians into these positions if possible, although they are not listed as positions requiring to be clinicians. Where I work, we have 2 nurses working as software quality engineers. In the hospital environment, it may be a bit tougher as you are competiting with nurses with possibly more advanced degrees or more nursing experience. I would check the job sites on line like monster and the jobs at himss.org to see if there are positions that might fit you. If you are limited to a certain location, of course, your options are more limited.

[applewhitern, BSN, RN]

Our IT personnel aren't even nurses; they have some type of computer degrees, but not nursing degrees. Right now we are advertising to find someone to fill a position that someone just left, and there is no requirement that they be a nurse. (I realize that you have a BSN- I'm just mentioning that.)

[Macbs4]

Thanks everyone for all your honest and helpful feedback. You give me confidence in combining my nursing and IT skills to get an informatics position.

Does anyone think the upcoming ICD-10 conversion requirements will open up more jobs? Would an ICD-10 certification help at this point?

Thanks again for your input!

[ikarus01]

Thanks everyone for all your honest and helpful feedback. You give me confidence in combining my nursing and IT skills to get an informatics position.

Does anyone think the upcoming ICD-10 conversion requirements will open up more jobs? Would an ICD-10 certification help at this point?

ICD-10 is more on the billing/coding department of jobs, or healthcare information management (HIM) related. You can google HIMMS to look at the different certifications they have in that professional branch. Matter of fact, rninformatics covered this in another post which you can find here.

As an informatics nurse, you're really out there dealing mainly with applications used by different nurse units or even departments and you don't really get deeply involved with ICD-10 coding.

I mean, I have implemented revenue cycle applications in a previous life, and I have met with the billing coders, but I didn't need to know all the details they knew. I just needed to know how some fields were mapped in the application, but ICD-10 is kind of a different specialty out there. Unless of course, you want to go to the HIM route. That's a different story.

But again, you want to help yourself get in the field, get involved as I mentioned before in my first response, or read the post or article that rninformatics posted on the sticky section of the forum, since this has been covered many other times in the forum:

How Do I Get Started in Nursing Informatics? on ADVANCE for Nurses