Software-Related Nursing Opportunites?

[Leonjesu]

Greetings. I am a new nurse with less than six months of experience under my belt. I had a very hard time in the last two semesters of nursing school - so difficult that I took an entire year, after graduating/receiving my license, off. I have mixed feelings about how I handled those situations.

I started working in late September, working PRN nights at both a nursing home and at a small, critical-access hospital with only 7 rooms for the floor. There is always 1 nurse (RN or LPN) and 1 CNA there on the floor at all times. I figured that I would get some MedSurge experience, albeit an inconsistent amount due to a very real chance of not having any patients (Many days, I've only had one patient, many of them being very self-sufficient patients. These types of patients are almost always swing-bed.).

The nursing home is a 60-bed facility and challenges nurses to become more efficient with time management, general medication knowledge, and thorough - swift -assessment skills. I've been there only a few months and I have identified issues with several residents that ended up with them, justifiably so, sent to our attached ER/Floor (where I work). I largely attribute this to my lack of familiarity with these residents, though I understand the merits of being familiar with them.

So, I think I am doing a fairly good job balancing acute patients, swing-bed, and nursing home patients. So, I decided to go full-time nights on the floor and PRN days/nights with the nursing home. I am sometimes put on days as a nursing supervisor (only 3x now). I do the best charting, which I don't really think is much of a feat considering I am in a rural town in Mississippi.

So here's where I am. I enjoy the (sometimes) slower pace of the night shift life, but it leaves my personal relationships in a void because of the opposing schedules. Every night shift nurse, I'm sure, knows this struggle. I don't see myself wanting to switch to day shift due to administration pulling nurses, specifically in the nursing home, in all different directions with med passes (8 am med pass - lord jesus), bureaucracy, and increasing amounts of policies, in-services, charting demands, and, quite frankly, the one we know best - an understaffed facility. The only time it would ever be fully staffed is when State randomly pops up once a year, and you see office dwellers you haven't talked with since you were hired.

These are all normal things related to nursing, I'm learning... and I don't think it's for me. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love taking care of people. I love sympathizing/empathizing with patients and residents, but there really are only two parts of my job as an ADN - Pass medications and chart; I know there is more, but this seems to be the bulk of the work - and, as you guys know - and are paid pennies.

So, to get to the point of my post - I am seriously considering finding a nursing-related day-shift job once I get a year under my belt. The only catch is that I am leaning towards integrating nursing with what I originally thought I wanted to do - computer science and anything software related. My conundrum is this: I want to move towards this integrated type of career (move away from patient care into a technological area that would benefit nursing), but I am unsure of where to start, where I could go, and what I could do.

If you've gotten this far, I appreciate your time.

Summary: I didn't know what I was getting myself into when I became a nurse, and now I want to shift my nursing work to be more software related, yet still benefitting the healthcare profession I've chosen.

[Nurse SMS, MSN, RN]

Research an advanced degree in Nursing Informatics.

Best of luck. You will need 2-5 years of acute care experience, but there are indeed nurses that work with computer systems more than with people.

[Hoosier_RN, MSN]

It also depends on where you live. Unless you are in a large metro area, those jobs are hard to find, but it can happen. I was completing my MS in Informatics when I discovered that there is a lack of jobs out there, and a market flood of grads with experience. I changed my degree focus. I also have a master's in programming. So look for a job, but get some experience before making the leap

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

See our members advice in allnurses Nursing Informatics forum:

https://allnurses.com/nursing-informatics-c18/