Mariah

Also the summer institute in nursing informatics at the University of Maryland provides a webcast with a significant amount of potential CEUs in July. You can watch the recorded web programs at a time convenient to you. You can find it at http://nursing.umaryland.edu/informatics/index.htm

Supermom - congratulations on your new position. I'm not sure what type of employer you have. You mention a company, so I perhaps can infer that you work for a vendor or other IT company. I work for a healthcare IT vendor and a few suggestions to help you. (1) They won't expect you to know everything. Many of the day to day things you need to know will be learned on the job such as what needs to be done, how your company does it, what documentation is required, etc. But they will expect you to be willing to learn and to take on new challenges (2) Expect a lot of independence. The role of the NI in a company carries with much independent decision making and initiative. Just by being a nurse, you will be considered an expert and treated with respect. When you speak, they will listen carefully. Don't be afraid to suggest new things or to make your own decisions. This can be one of the hardest things to be comfortable with. But having earned your new degree already shows a lot of initiative and enthusiatism. (3) Expect a much greater diversity in peoples backgrounds, goals, and responsibilities. They will not all be clinicians. Their main focus is not directly the patient/family There will be engineers, business people, accountants, and so on. This requires being aware of who you are talking to and adjusting your communication content appropriately. (4) Other clinicians will be your best source of information and support. This especially include those in the company. This also includes those that you meant at the NI organizations. Congrats again on your new job. It is an exciting new chapter in your life.

I've done the web cast for 2 years now. It is very useful. I've been able to get the CEUs, but I had to contact them directly to request them. They don't necessarily come automatic. If it is critical to get CEUs, I would suggest contacting them directly to determine if what their policy is for this year. They may not continue with this practice. One of the benefits is you can watch these presentations any time you want. Another benefit, it saves a lot of money and time that would be required if you traveled there. Disadvantages is there are sessions I would rather have heard, but not the ones on the web cast. Also, the tapes are available only for a limited time (I think 2 weeks). I'm planning to web cast again this year.

As Angela as said, you don't need a CIS or IS or CS degree to go into nursing informatics. You do need clinical experience. If you happen to have a technical degree or are currently working on one, then it can be a career advantage for many, but not all, positions. If you are looking for an advanced degree to help you in nursing informatics and are looking at the two options of technical degree versus MS in nursing informatics, then it takes some very very careful thought about what your career goals are and what type of work you like to do. One is not better than the other, it all depends on what you want to do in informatics. As for CS versus CIS, it depends on what the university describes these degrees as. Either one is fine, depending on what you plan to do with it in the future. For basic nursing informatics work, either is fine.

Try http://www.amia.org/working/ni/education/education.html for a list of nursing informatics programs. You will need to have some clinical practice for informatics jobs. There is a lot of info in this bulletin board - some old and new that can provide info. Also check out http://www.amia.org/resource/acad&training/f1.html

Congratulations perseus. As a nurse with a CS degree, I know where you are coming from. I actual had an IT head hunter who knew I was a nurse, asking me if I could do programming. This with the CS degree staring them in the face on my resume. Sometimes it is hard to fight the assumptions.

The health care informatics field depends heavily on databases such as SQL server and oracle. I guess the main question is whether you want to focus on the nursing or focus on the computer science. Informatic nurses that work in hospitals and for vendors usually don't do programming, but they do use their health care knowledge, their communication skills,and their project management skills to bring information systems to a reality. Clinical practice is a must before you do this. If you want to be more technical such as a DBA, programmer, or write stored procedures/funcions, then clinical experience is less important. Like others suggest, check out the web pages, try to attend a few organizational meetings, check our the local hospital web pages for jobs in the IT departments. Learn what you can and decide what direction makes best sense for you. Finish your LPN in the meantime and get some nursing experience.

Jascraft - what made you decide to get the LPN in the first place? What type of computer background do you have? Do you have any programming experience. People in the healthcare informatics area come from two directions. They are either clinicians with a speciality in informatics or they are technical people who happen to be clinicians. Almost all of the people in nursing informatics are nurses with a speciality (experience and/or education) in nursing informatics. Very few have technical degrees, but many of they have BSN (RN) or higher. This is understandable because they come into this field as clinicians that have assimulated informatics knowledge. The main focus is they are clinicians. Kathleen is right in saying that you need nursing experience to take on their roles. Informatic nurses work for hospitals to implement vendor systems in their organization, working, some, as analysts. Those working for vendors are often in marketing, learning products, or support. Check out the web page from http://www.amia.org in the nursing informatics group for job descriptions and informatics links. But if you are more interested in the technical, then you are coming from the other direction and you could get a technical job working in the hospital IT department or for a vendor. It would depend on your technical experience. Check out http://www.himss.org and their job bank for the type of positions where the technical takes on a greater focus. There is a lot of information out there, and definitely you can combine the two. Good Luck

What's your first priority? To be a nurse or to be a computer programmer? There are jobs that mix both in nursing and technical positions.

maty12 I don't know if this would be enough to help you or not. Sometimes you can check the various vendor sites. Many of them have screen shots of their products if you search around enough. However, they won't show the interactions of the screen, unless you register. You will see what the screens look like from a color and layout perspective. For example if you go to http://www.health-infosys-dir.com/yphccis.asp you will find a list of vendors. Ignore any that are consultants. Like try Cerner or company like that and look around its web page. Of course, check with your instructors. This may not be sufficient enough for your project.

check out http://www.hl7.org for full information

It is hard to tell from your message whether you looking at nursing informatics from a nursing perspective or from an informatics perspective. There are two paths that people can take to get into health care informatics. One is the clinical path: you start as a clinician going to nursing school and then specialize in informatics. The other is the technical path: you start with a technical degree (CS, IT, MIS) and go into the health care informatics area. The preferred for the nursing informatics path, although certainly not required, is a nurse with a basic BS in nursing with additional education in nursing informatics beyond that, most likely a MS in nursing informatics. However, we have nurses working in this field without a MS and without a BS. Those without a BS are at a disadvantage. Before going into nursing informatics, most nurses have many years of clinical practice. A good source of information is this recent survey by the HIMSS group at http://www.himss.org/content/files/nursing_info_survey2004.pdf Also check out the http://www.himss.org in general for health care informatics info. The job bank can give you ideas of jobs in general that deal with health care informatics, but not necessarily nursing. This survey will also tell you what the NI nurses do. As for the examples you given such as research and development and setting databases, that is usually, but not always, done by those involved in the technical path or having at least a technical degree. I work in research and development and most of the people here have followed the technical path. Is the NI job stable yes. With the current nursing shortage, there are jobs for NI nurses.

Linda A good source of information would be the HIMSS survey they did this past Feb on nurses in nursing informatics. It will tell you salaries, education, and roles. Heres a link for it. http://www.himss.org/content/files/nursing_info_survey2004.pdf

Senimoni - What a nurse with a nursing informatics background does in IT may be different than what an regular IT person does. There is some overlap in job responsibilities, particularly in the areas of system analysis and design and project management in the hospital. Of course, it depends a lot on the organization. I'm not sure what aspects of IT you particularly like but you want to be sure that a NI nurse does those things. IT could mean a lot of things, from doing system backups as a system administrator to architecting a new system as part of an R&D team. Otherwise, the nursing degree doesn't make sense. I found that my nursing education was more stressful and more difficult than my computer science education. It requires that you enjoy, thrive, and value direct physical patient care. But, it can be done. A nursing degree may give you an edge for an IT job in health care informatics, but it is on par with the right technology background as well (ie .NET, xml, etc) and it depends on what IT jobs you are looking for. Vendor versus hospital jobs also vary on priorities. For It health care positions, check out himss.org job bank to get an idea of job requirements.

MsDeeva. I can not be sure exactly what they are looking for and what the position involves as I am not familar with the add or IDX. I would assume that it would prefer informatics experience because it is a CPOE system. It is a position that requires a RN, so it is probably more of the field positions where nurses are involved with customers to install systems, train, etc. Since it is an RN position, a technical degree is not required. Although they call it analyst, it is seems to be the same type of field position as Educator, Application specialist, Consultant.... But as I said, this is just a guestimate. These terms get thrown all around and they can mean a lot of different things. What I mean by analyst is someone who works within the factory and is involved directly in the design process of the product.