Nursing + Technology = Awesome Career Choices!

Health information technology (HIT) and nursing are two of the fastest growing careers in the health care field. While nursing informatics and traditional nursing may have the same roots, they differ in how they touch patients’ lives. Traditional nurses find themselves face-to-face with patients, using software and hardware devices to keep track of health status. Nursing informatics specialists, on the other hand, work towards these same patient outcomes by integrating nursing practices with information and communication technologies to create safe and effective standards of care.

Nursing informatics integrates nursing science, computer science and information science to better manage and communicate information, data and knowledge in the practice of nursing. Nursing informatics specialists facilitate data integration, information and knowledge so that they provide better support to patients, nurses and other health care providers.

Opportunities for jobs in nursing informatics are exploding, thanks to the use of electronic medical records and the general growth of information technology. The Advance Healthcare Network for Nurses reports that as many as 70,000 health informatics specialists will be required within the next few years. ExploreHEALTHCareers states that in 2014, the average annual salary for a nurse informaticist was $100,717. Recent surveys conducted by HIMSS also found that 79% of healthcare employers plan to hire more IT staff in the future. Many nurses are finding themselves interested in technology and informatics but don't know where to start when it comes to finding a way to combine their passions of nursing and technology.

The purpose of this presentation is to introduce the viewer to various nursing informatics roles. Some common titles in nursing informatics include: Nurse informaticist, Nursing informatics specialist, Nursing informatics clinician, Clinical informatics coordinator, Clinical analyst, Clinical nurse informatics specialist, and IT clinical nurse.

Attention will be placed on the role description, educational requirements, and key skills needed.