looking for a guidance how to start career in Nursing Informatics

Eldow076 · Jul 24, 2014

Honestly? Determination. It took me 5 years to finally get into informatics. I had interviewed at my old facility and didn't get the job. Then I moved to my new hospital which I will be a lifer at so it was important that I got into THIS IT department. I applied a couple times and then finally got an interview with the Meditech Clinical Applications group. The manager used to be a nurse manager in our medical center and one of the team people was my old floor manager. Then I had to sell myself. I researched a lot about meaningful use and HL7 so I would know at least a little something going in.

That whole long story was to show that it took time and experience before I was able to finally make the switch. I also had to agree to a $1 paycut to my hourly rate (I'm now salary) to make up for my lack of IT experience.

The best place to start is the facility you currently work at. Volunteer for any "superuser" opportunites as they come up. I was a super user at every facility I worked at for everything from Omnicell to Vocera. If you interview for a position and don't get it, follow up with the manager to see where you can improve next time a position opens.