Nursing home work helpful or harmful?

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Specializes in telemetry, cardiopulmonary stepdown, LTC. Hospice.

Hello, I'm an old/new nurse. I'm 42, and have 2.5 years experience in solid organ transplant and cardiac stepdown, and 5 months experience in a nursing home setting. I moved to the nursing home because I wanted something closer to home. I got tired of driving two hours round trip to work. What I wonder is: is the nursing home job hurting my chances to become a nursing informatic specialist? I'm currently working on my bachelor's degree (I have an ADN) and plan to start work on training in informatics, but wonder if I should seek out work in a hospital again to improve my chances of being hired as a informatics nurse when I'm done training.

It would be easier to get my coursework done while I'm at the nursing home, but if it means trouble in the future I will get back into the hospital setting.

Thanks,

Cara

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Specializes in Med-Surg, Nursing Informatics.

Hi Cara,

While I am not certain, I would say that no your current position does not hinder you at all. The current hospital I work at has a nursing home affilitated with it, they just went live with a specialized nursing home system that addresses their unique needs.

Debbie G

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Specializes in informatics for 10 years.

If anything, that nursing home experience can only broaden your job search perspective later on. Nursing homes are also starting to use EMRs, so that experience gives you access to those jobs too. You already have enough hospital experience so i wouldn't worry at all about working at a nursing home. If anything, i would be treating it as a great opportunity to learn the workflows there. Best of luck.

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