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.

MsDeeva - a technical degree such as a degree in computer science, computer engineering, information systems, or management information systems. A MSN in informatics is a nursing degree with a technical focus, but is not considered a technical degree. I hope this helps.

Sailor Good luck on your search. Vendors have positions in the field called "Clinical Specialist", "Consultant", "Eduator" or "Application Specialist" or something like that that requires them to be a clinician. These are the positions that travel in the field organization. They also write documentation/training at the factory (main office). Most informatics nurses with only nursing degrees are limited to these clinician positions or the management of these positions. Unless they have a great deal of informatics experience or have worked up the management chain, they do not have the opportunity for other positions in the vendor organization such as analyst. Most other positions greatly prefer technical degrees, technical writing degrees, or MBAs. Because of your BSCS, you have more vendor opportunities than the usual informatics nurse. An informatics nurse with technical degree is very very rare. Just to make you aware that your situation is somewhat unique and your opportunities are broader than most in some areas, from a vendor perspective. But working as clinician in the field can be exciting and rewarding. Many have enjoyed it and have dedicated many years in helping others install their systems and getting them to work at their peak capabilities.

Sailor - you were in the other posts on vendors as well. If I understand, you have a BS in computer science. Vendors have a lot of different jobs. There are field jobs and factory jobs. The field jobs do installations, training, sales. They are the ones that do a great deal of traveling. In the factory positions, the traveling is significantly less. We have/had nurses in the following positions at one time or another (1) product management - determines the requirements for the products per release. Travels much. MBA prefered (2) Learning products - responsible for developing training programs, user documents, training customers at beta sites. Travels much less than marketing and field. Maybe a trip every 2 months. (3) Testing - engineers with clinical backgrounds write test plans and test the product to ensure quality and FDA safety. No travel at all (4) R&D - engineers software development. Hardly any travel, can vary with position 4 to 1 time a year. (5) Product marketing - prepares sales tools and supports the sale staff. Some travel, but not as much as the field.

I have both a MSN and a MSCS. As Angela states, the main difference is the focus. I can only talk about differences as the MS level. Note that masters in computer science, information systems, and information technology are not necessarily the same. It all depends on how the college describes them. At my MSCS school, they had both. One in the engineering school and the other in the business school. The engineering school students went mostly onto software engineering positions, designing and writing software in R&D. Those with the IS degree went off to IT departments or less technical engineer positions such as quality test engineers. A CS degree has a much stronger technological component with extensive programming experience. There are classes on databases, artificial intelligence, graphics, programming languages, robotics, and others. The MSCS degree is usually 30 credits. There is no practicum. There is either a project or a thesis. The MSN degree in informatics has a technical focus, but much less so. The MSN also has a lot of nursing foundation classes that all nurses are required such as nursing theory, statistics, research methodology, nursing trends, etc. This makes sense because their focus is how to use the technology for the benefit of health care. Also, their technology classes focus more on system analysis/design than programming and software architecture. They also usually require more credits - my program was 49. There is usually a couple of NI classes (in a sequence), some technical electives, nursing foundation classes, and practicums. A thesis or project is often required. What degree one wants to have depends on what you want to do. Working in an hospital IT or as a nursing informatics specialist, a NI degree would probably be more desired. Working for a vendor as an implementator, trainer, learning products, then a NI degree would also be more useful. Working in software development where you are expected to write software code, a technical degree is more desirable and from a vendor's perspective, is usual required. There is a certain desire in the nursing profession for nursing degrees (by nurses) and related degrees in another area are less desired (again, nurses). Note, this was not necessarily the opinions of non-nurses. A vendor will often pick the nurse with MBA over the MSN for a marketing position. So, I can't predict the future was to which degree would be better. I think it basically depends on which side of the fence you would be most happy working at. These positions either require a nursing degree or a technical degree. Rarely, both and depend much on what you do.

The ideal way --- First get a nursing degree, probably a BS at least if you can do that. You can either go the traditional BS program or try the specialized MSN programs that take students with BS in other fields. If you get a BSN or MSN, it allows you to get into the MS nursing informatics or the Post Master Nursing informatics certificate programs if you want at a later time. Get some clinical experience - an must. With the BS in CS you probably can jump into nursing informatics at that point. Harder way - An Associate degree in nursing is faster, but may give you a disadvantage down the road. First, to get any MS or higher level nursing degree, you would need the BS anyway and would need to go to a BS program. Also, there is a trend in nursing to want nurses to have a BS or MS degree when they are in these project mgmt/specialist roles. Good luck

Themathias Thanks for the response. As Angela said, Monster.com and Career builders are good places to look around. Look for positions such as software engineer or programmer with the words of medical or healthcare. Also, HIMSS (http://www.himss.org) , AMIA (http://www.amia.org), and other organizations provide job listings in health care informatics. Software development jobs and other are listed among them. Also, to find a list of vendors, I would check out the healthcare informatics journals. Each year, many of them have an issue that lists all of the healthcare informatics vendors as a reference issue. These include Health Management Technology, Healthcare Informatics , Advance for Health Information Executives, Health Data Management, and others. A couple of vendors listed in your area include http://www.digichart.com and http://www.healthtrio.com. But to see a full list, you would need to get one of these journals and find the vendors listed in the desired area. A college with a health care informatics focus, nursing or non-nursing, would have these as well as possibly a hospital's library. Good luck in school.

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Cynthia and Thematais I'm also a informatics nursing with a CS degree (MS). I work in software development for clinical information systems for a vendor. I am just one of many nurses involved. What made you decide to get the nursing education? Did you want to become a staff nurse or did you want to go into informatics initially? Just curious. Both of you will have the backgrounds for nursing informatics, as Angela has stated. With the CS degree, you have additional opportunities. This include software development of health care system, including clinical information systems. You do not need a nursing degree to do this. But then, this takes you away further from the health care environment and will require programming. For the most common nursing informatics positions, clinical experience is more important than technical. So getting some good nursing experience will be beneficial to both of you. But people in the nursing informatics field have all kinds of education in various combinations and levels. And they work in all kinds of positions. In some positions, certain education or experience is more desirable. But, I wouldn't get any more nursing education than what you currently planning to do until you analyze what you really want to do in this field. As Angela says, join a local informatics organization if you can. You can get an idea of what jobs they do as well as see demos of systems. If you let Angela or me know which general geographic region of the US you are in, we can direct you to certain groups that might be located near you. As for looking for positions when you are ready, don't limit yourself to your specific hospital. Check out vendors as well who are looking for informatics nurses in lots of positions.

Not completely out, but rather merged. Now R&D software engineer for health care information systems. More uncertain job market than staff nursing, but pays much better.

I was an instructor at a diploma program. Senior students spent 8 weeks in the ICU/CCU. But then in those days, diploma students had over 1500 hrs of practice before they got there. I never did the ICU rotation, but in Med Surg, I was on the unit the entire time. In the morning I made sure each student knew what they were doing, what they had to be concerned about, what their plans were, etc. Assignments were carefully selected depending on the education needs of the students, the complexity and status of the patient, personal desires of the patient, etc. I followed up frequently throughout the day with the student and the status of the patient. Although they were cosigned with an RN and checked with the RN throughout the day, I always assumed that the were also working under my license. Instructors were an integral part of the team on the unit and we worked collaborative with the head nurses. Activity wise - we functioned like a team leader (when team leading was practiced). I just can't imagine a instructor leaving a student there and disappearing.