One more question and then I'll be quite. :)

[ThanksForAllTheFish!]

So, I got the opportunity to spend a day following a few informatics nurses at my facility and pick their brains. Granted, one single day does not not tell me everything. And there would be much for me to learn upon entering this field. However, I was really interested in it, so much so that the next few days working on the unit was really rough. My dilemma is this: there are currently no positions available at my facility or any in my area that I have been able to locate.That's okay, I can wait . . . for a bit. However, I am burned out with bedside nursing, mentally and physically and have been for awhile. If worse comes to worse, is there a non-bedside position that I could go to that I could still reasonably find my way to informatics. Or once I leave the bedside are my chances shot? Thanks!

[kishykat]

My goal for the last 4 years was to make it into Informatics. I was a bedside nurse on a tele unit. There weren't any positions that were opening up in informatics at my hospital, but there was a management position that opened up, so I jumped at that. I was in that position for about 8 months before something opened up that I wanted to go for. I think that anything you can do to widen your experience is a good thing and can be spun in a good way. Just be careful, because at my hospital I can only switch position every 6 months. So if something opens up right away, if you've just taken a new position you may not be able to make that move.

[stephenfnielsen]

Other areas away from the bedside might include: process improvement, education, risk management, project management...But if none of those appear, look to get on different committees that deal with change management within your hospital or see if you can become some kind of a super user for your unit.

[ThanksForAllTheFish!]

Thank you all for the information! I really wish an informatics opportunity would present itself; absolutely no guarantee that I would get it, but it would be nice. Right now I am really emotionally and mentally buried out with my hospital and bedside nursing and don't know how much longer I can be a bedside nurse. Which makes waiting for an informatics position almost impossible. I know, its a sad familiar tale. I have reached the point where I don't want to have any direct patient care responsibilities even as something like a case manager. We are the last line of defense for our patients health, yet we are often the ones hung out to dry and that scares me. I have absolutely no desire for management positions or education positions aside from educating involving informatics. Of course there are bills to pay, health benefits needed, and d/t to returning to school to be a nurse I have no savings at all and more debt than I can handle. I am nowhere professionally, personally, and healthwise at this point in my life that I wanted to be.

Sorry for the vent. Bad week.