Transition to NI

Can any nursing informatics people tell me if I can still travel doing this? Can I still take a stipend?

Keri

You can travel, but traveling in informatics is setup a bit different than travel nursing. I used to be a travel nurse long ago, and I would say things are definitely not setup the same in the world of informatics.

In informatics you can get a job as a consultant, for example, and then you would travel weekly from your home to your assigned client. Usually travel days could be monday morning or sunday night, with the gist of being on site sometime on monday. Then you return home usually on thursday evenings, but I've seen some clients demand that the consultant stays all thursday and fly home friday.

Assignments vary. As a consultant you can get a 1 week assignment, 2 weeks, etc, so many months, and even an assignment that lasts a year or more.

Usually you stay in a hotel, get a rental car, and many times you get also a per diem rate. All really depends how your consulting company does it.

You might also work for a vendor and your role might require you to travel, but again, it might be that for so much time, you're actually working from the vendor's headquarters, and then for so many weeks you're required to travel to a client's location.

I've been in situations where I was required to be at two different clients in the same week. Not so common, but could happen.

Or you can work remotely for a vendor and then you travel to where a client needs you.

Thus, traveling is definitely possible in informatics, but is a bit different than travel nursing so the concept of stipend might not even exist. I haven't dealt with an stipend for example, but doesn't mean that others out there haven't set something up that way. Just definitely not something you would hear when traveling in the world of informatics.

What you usually get is, how long is the assignment for, reimbursement for hotel, rental car, flight. Is there per diem, if so how much per day? What are the travel days? Etc.

Even when you're given a longer assignment of let's say 6 months or even more, one thing that you never know about your job is, will it last that long.

There are some crazy factors out there that you're told the assignment will be so many months, but then you show up, and after 2 weeks the client might say, we don't need you anymore. So yea, is not like you can say, I'm going to go there and setup camp for 6 months. Things might be a bit more....combustible.

In travel nursing for example, you know you'll be in a place for 13 weeks or 9 weeks or however long the assignment is.

Also, to be a consultant, many times that position requires you to have experience configuring applications, but some jobs out there that could be entry level for consultants. But that usually is not the norm.

I do not have any NI degree, but hold a BSN and have a lot of experience in med/surg, trauma, oncology, telemetry, transplant, general surgery, etc. Should I get the degree/certificate to start? Do I need it?

Keri

There are plenty of people that get a job in this field without a specific informatics degree or certificate. But again, it helps to be involved in the field, specially nowadays where the hunt for jobs has become a lot more competitive than a few years ago. That's why others in this forum will tell you, get involved in informatics first.

Getting a degree does open doors to getting interviews, but like I tell others, be aware that when you are interviewing for a job, and there are other candidates with a degree and experience in the field, most likely the job will go to the latter candidate.

Informatics is not such a rigid profession that mandates you to have a specific degree on it, but I would say having some experience is definitely helpful to your job search.

Does not sound like this would be easy to do with a dog in tow! Also, are you saying that I would have to foot the money and then wait for a reimbursement? Yikes! I don't know about this anymore!

Also, are you saying that I would have to foot the money and then wait for a reimbursement? Yikes! I don't know about this anymore!

It really depends how the company does it. I used to work for a vendor and they gave us a company credit card. We had I think 45 days to pay the bill. Thus, you charged your hotel, car rental, and flights to that credit card, and weekly, you submitted your expenses,and you were reimbursed within 2 weeks of submitting your bills. Thus, by the time the credit card was due, I already had the money from the vendor to pay for it. This was a while back and friends working there tell me the system changed so not sure how it is now.

Nonetheless, I've worked for other consulting companies where indeed, you pay the expenses out of your own pocket and then get reimbursed. While other companies also have their own travel agent and they do all the bookings for you and then you don't pay anything, but you have to comply with all the schedules set by the company, which sometimes is a drag. So it all depends how the expenses are set up, but there is a bit of everything out there.

And about the dog....like I said, traveling in informatics, is not like travel nursing where you're told, go to this client and you go to that city and set up camp for a period of time.

In this field, you fly to the client on a weekly basis, and that's the norm, although one time I did work out a deal where I got an extended apartment and stayed in a city for a month, but had to negotiate this with the consulting company first. This is not the norm, as it is in travel nursing.

Thus, that might be hard to do if you have a dog. Nonetheless, this is my own experience. Maybe others out there have worked out deals where they stay in one city for extended periods of time, but again, this is not the norm, just like it is not the norm in travel nursing to tell your company, hey, can I stay in my home city and fly to my assigned client every week, and you pay for the plane tickets, hotel, and rental car weekly?