JPure

Thanks for your reply! I will gain more experience before applying for a position. Do you think ambulatory surgery or clinical trials would be considered sufficient clinical experience? Those are two areas I would be more interested in than ED or telemetry (especially in my hospital).

Hi all! I am a new RN, graduated with a BSN last May and in my 5th month working on a Med-Surg unit (first health care job). As much as I appreciate the opportunity working here, I can't stand bedside and am already looking for new jobs once I hit 1 year here. I like technology. Even as a new nurse, I find myself figuring out the EHR naturally and even teaching the older staff how to navigate/edit things. Long story short: I am hoping to become an informatics Nurse. My question is, what's the best route for a new Nurse to get into this field? This is my plan: Finish up 1 year in Med-Surg. Apply for a clinical trials RN position and get some years of experience with data collection and data entry. (I feel this would be good for me as there is relatively less patient contact and I am generally interested in research and quality improvement/medical advancement). Then apply for an informatics position, and apply for to Masters in Health Informatics programs after landing a job. Another route I was thinking was get a job in clinical data analytics if any allow an RN with 1 years acute care experience. See if this job lets me get into data analytics (if not, go for IT courses online/locally). And then apply for informatics and some years experiences. I haven't looked into how enjoyable clinical data analytics is, but I am the type of person who doesn't mind working in an office and doing busy work. I have expressed interest at my job in regards to becoming a Super User but management is very slow to make things happen. And I do respect my unit manager, so perhaps even if I find a new job, I may (or may not) switch to per diem to help my burnt out coworkers once in a while. Anyway, any advice on which route I should pick or what I should do differently? Every thing is much appreciated!