Ok, I give up, what is it....

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Hi everyone,

I've decided to go back to school to become an RN. I already have a BS in another field so I will be going the accelerated BSN route.

I heard someone mention nursing informatics the other day and thought I would look to see what it is about. I've been reading the forms and found the ANIA website but after reading all of this I still have no idea what a nurse in this field does.

Because I can tell it deals with IT and electronic records it may be something I already have a background in. I currently work at a Help Desk for a health care registry that uses electronic data capture. Where I work we offer clinical as well as technical support so I feel like I have a decent background in both as it stands right now. I'm just trying to see if this is something that might be for me.

Thanks for everyone for any input.

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Hi everyone,

I've decided to go back to school to become an RN. I already have a BS in another field so I will be going the accelerated BSN route.

I heard someone mention nursing informatics the other day and thought I would look to see what it is about. I've been reading the forms and found the ANIA website but after reading all of this I still have no idea what a nurse in this field does.

Because I can tell it deals with IT and electronic records it may be something I already have a background in. I currently work at a Help Desk for a health care registry that uses electronic data capture. Where I work we offer clinical as well as technical support so I feel like I have a decent background in both as it stands right now. I'm just trying to see if this is something that might be for me.

Thanks for everyone for any input.

Here's a few sites to ponder

www.cerner.com

www.meditech.com

www.epic.com this one might not be right.

What these companies need/want is a "person" to show the nurses how to use a computer to chart with. What happened initially with this technology was that the programmer didn't know nurse speak. They didn't know what nurses needed/wanted in their computer aided charting system.

That's where nurses came in . We speak the language we know how the day goes etc. We make the programmers life livable. LOL

Same with pharmacy, OR, scheduling. Someone can write the program but if they don't know the "language" of the discipline it doesn't always work well.

You could probably get your Master's in Health Informatics without a nursing degree. U of Maryland has a great program. You'd have to check it out as I don't know if they accept non nurses.

Good luck

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Here's a few sites to ponder

www.cerner.com

www.meditech.com

www.epic.com this one might not be right.

What these companies need/want is a "person" to show the nurses how to use a computer to chart with. What happened initially with this technology was that the programmer didn't know nurse speak. They didn't know what nurses needed/wanted in their computer aided charting system.

That's where nurses came in . We speak the language we know how the day goes etc. We make the programmers life livable. LOL

Same with pharmacy, OR, scheduling. Someone can write the program but if they don't know the "language" of the discipline it doesn't always work well.

You could probably get your Master's in Health Informatics without a nursing degree. U of Maryland has a great program. You'd have to check it out as I don't know if they accept non nurses.

Good luck

Thanks that helped out!

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Here's another resource for you

http://www.nursing.umaryland.edu/%7Esnewbold/sknfaqni.htm

"Frequently Asked Questions about Nursing Informatics"

Good luck

Kathleen Smith

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You might also want to look at some nursing informatics job descriptions to get a better idea what different types of nursing informatics jobs involve:

http://www.amia.org/mbrcenter/wg/ni/roles.asp

http://www.informaticsnurse.com/forums/informatics-job-description-database/

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I did a nursing informatics observation at a large Phoenix hospital and found on one day that some informatics nurses: test code alarms in PT rooms, test new computer program/systems, and attend meetings to discuss computer program changes such as flow charts. This hospital hired nurses from each floor so the 4 NI nurse team had a blend of different floor experience.

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