Question regarding Contact hours vs Credit hours

[NO1_2NV]

I am currently an ADN nursing student who will graduate in December of this year. I am interested in the field of Nursing Informatics and need a little light shed upon this area. Nursing is a second career for me. I have been in the software industry for over 17 years as a web site designer and programmer, GUI concept designer, and documentation manager.

With this type of background will contact hour certifications equal the same as credit hour certifications in an employers eyes? I don't have a master's or a PhD and it will be sometime before I can achieve either of these. Any and all information is more then appreciated.

Thanks.

K

[perseus29]

Depending on the employer, they either hire those that have a CIS/MIS/CS background with no healthcare experience, or they hire healthcare experienced people with no IT experience, or they hire people that are 'trainable', depending how desperate they are. Of course, it would be great if the person had both IT and healthcare experience, but not many of those around. I'm not really sure how contact hours certifications and credit hours come into play.

Given your background in IT and your current nursing education, as I have stated before in other posts, I would concentrate on finding hospitals in your area that are looking for people to help out with their it project implementations,and then what really matters is ur interviewing and persuasive skills! The number one question that always came up for me was: have you implemented a project at the hospital level....and from there, is all how good you are at interpolating your skills and answering that question.