Navy Nursing Informatics?

Mursey, BSN, RN · Oct 7, 2022

Just saw this and am curious as to what you found out. I'm currently in the Navy and trying to see if that is something I can even get into. Thank you!

jfratian, DNP, RN, CRNA · Oct 7, 2022

I'm not Navy but, from what I've seen in the Air Force, informatics is not seen as a viable, full-time career path in military healthcare. It's really more of an additional duty you do for a few hours a week in addition to patient care. Ultimately, I feel like if your role doesn't translate into a deployed environment (I.e. direct patient care or healthcare leadership), you're seen as superfluous. Many of these type of jobs (quality, safety, etc) are often done by a civilian.

I actually spent a year of my time with the team that bought the current military EHR from Cerner back in 2014-2015 (they call it "MHS Genesis"). Except for the few O-6s who ran the program, all of us did it part-time in addition to patient care shifts.

I have seen call for candidate emails for 1-year professional development fellowships in quality, safety, etc. There may be one for informatics I haven't heard of. However, I suspect that, just like with the CNS's, you'll ultimately get misused and thrown into management against your will when you graduate.

Mursey, BSN, RN · Oct 8, 2022

It is different in the Navy. Navy and Air Force are completely different in so many aspects that it doesn't surprise me. I spent some time at Walter Reed so I have seen how Army, Navy, and Air Force can all differ. Ultimately, I was I had gone back into the Air Force instead. It would have saved me so much more grief in the end. I know that I would still have to do some patient care, but it would just be for "sustainment" purposes.

jfratian, DNP, RN, CRNA · Oct 8, 2022

I say this all to say that I am vaguely familiar with Navy and Army informatics vis a vis my work with the tri-service workflow advisory group (TSWAG) during the tri-service acquisition of Cerner (MHS Genesis) to replace CHCS/AHLTA/Essentris in 2014-2015. In that role I did informatics work part-time with people from all 3 services.

Based on that experience, it is my opinion that all 3 branches seem to treat informatics as an additional duty (you guys call them collaterals) and not a full time gig. Ultimately your hospital's chief nurse equivalent would be the person to ask if such a full-time track exists. However, my opinion is that it's unlikely.