Research Qualifications For A Nursing Informatics Specialist

Research
Qualifications for a Nursing Informatics Specialist

Nursing informatics is quite young as nursing specialties go. It was first recognized as a
specialty in 1992 and the first certification exams became available in 1995, according to
the University of Texas at Arlington. The nurse informaticist combines three disciplines –
nursing, information science and computer science – to develop tools that help health-
care professionals manage information about patients. Technology is becoming an
integral part of health care and the nurse informaticist helps to develop, support and
foster the integration of technology and clinical care.
Education, Experience and Certification

Nurse informaticists require extensive education and should have considerable clinical
experience. A survey by the American Nurses Credentialing Center in 2010 found that
informatics nurses had an average of almost 27 years in nursing. The ANCC also found that
all of the survey respondents were certified in informatics, and over 50 percent had been
certified for at least five years. A study in 2011 by the Healthcare Information and
Management Systems Society, or HIMSS, reported that 56 percent of the respondents had
a post-graduate degree at the master's or doctoral level in nursing.
Interpersonal Skills
The nurse informaticist should have excellent interpersonal and communications skills.
This individual is often required to explain clinical issues to technical staff such as
computer programmers or data analysts, educate clinical staff about technical issues such
as data management and sit on a number of multidisciplinary committees. Many nurse
informaticists are also expected to educate staff in the use of technology or information
programs such as electronic medical records, or EMRs. The switch from paper to electronic
records can be daunting to some clinical staff, and the nurse informaticist must function
as coach and mentor during the transition.
Confidentiality
A nurse informaticist must feel a strong obligation to protect the privacy of each patient.
Nurse informaticists, by virtue of their training and the role they play in their institutions,
often have much more access to confidential information than staff nurses or even
physicians. The Nightingale Pledge makes it clear that nurses have an obligation to keep
personal matters of others confidential. In the electronic realm, clinical, financial and
personal information are readily available to the nurse informaticist, who has a duty and
ethical responsibility to safeguard that information.
Process Flow
Nurse informaticists must be experts in process flow, as this is one of their major
responsibilities, according to the American Nurses Credentialing Center. Hospitals, like
most organizations, develop ways of doing things that involve many different steps.
Process flow is a way of analyzing and recording the work steps in a logical and coherent
fashion, often by the use of flow charts. As health care moves from handwritten
documents to computerized information, many of the steps in the work flow will need to
be changed, and the nurse informaticist must have both the clinical knowledge and the
technological skill to identify and make necessary changes.
ROLE OF NURSE
In today’s dynamic health systems, technology plays an important role in education and
nursing work. So it seems necessary to study the role of nurses and highlight the need for
appropriate information technology educational programs to integrate with the ever-
increasing pace of technology. A review accompanied by an extensive literature search in
databases and a library search focused on the keywords were used. The criteria used for
selecting studies primarily focused on nursing informatics and the importance of expertise
in the effective use of information technology in all aspects of the nursing profession. In a
critical assessment of emerging technologies, the key elements of nursing informatics
implementation were considered as healthcare promotion, advanced systems, internet
and network. In view of the nature and the development of the information age, it is
required to receive necessary IT training for all categories of nurses. Due to the fast
development of technology, in order to effectively take advantage of information
technology in nursing outcome and quality of health care and to empower nurses;
educational arrangement is recommended to set short-term and long-term specialized
courses focusing on four target groups: studying, working, graduate, senior
undergraduate, and graduate doctoral. The result of this study is expected to assist
educational providers with program development.
Competencies
The competency of nursing informatics specialists was determined through studying three
categories including computer skills, informatics knowledge and informatics skills. It
investigates four levels of nursing practice: beginning nurse, experienced nurse,
informatics specialist, and informatics innovator.
The following competencies were rejected: diagnostic coding, desktop publishing,
managing central facilities to enable data sharing and writing an original computer
program (Staggers et al., 2002). Some components of accepted competencies are shown
below in brief.
1.2.1 Computer Skills
Selected computer skill competencies contain computerized searches and retrieving
patient demographics data, the use of telecommunication devices, the documentation of
patient care, the use of information technologies for improving nursing care, and the use
of networks and computer technology safely.
1.2.2 Informatics Knowledge
Selected informatics knowledge competencies are the recognition of the use or
importance of nursing data for improving practice, and the recognition of the fact that the
computer can only facilitate nursing care and that there are human functions that cannot
be performed by computers, the formulation of ethical decisions in computing, the
recognition of the value of clinicians’ involvement in the design, selection,
implementation, and evaluation of systems in health care, the description of the present
manual systems, the definition of the impact of computerized information management
on the role of the nurse and the determination of the limitations and the reliability of
computerized patient monitoring systems.
1.2.3 Informatics Skills
Informatics skills competencies includes the interpretation of information flow within the
organization, the preparation of process information flow charts for all aspects of clinical
systems, the development of standards and database structures to facilitate clinical care,
education, administration or research. It also includes the development of innovative and
analytic techniques for scientific inquiry in nursing informatics and new data organizing
methods and research designs with the aim of examining the impacts of computer
technology on nursing, and the conducting of basic science research to support the
theoretical development of informatics. Information literacy skills, competencies, and
knowledge are investigated among educators, administrators and clinicians of nursing
groups nationally.
CARRER IN NURSING Technology and Informatics

Careers in health information typically fall into one of three broad categories. Health
information management includes occupations such as medical records technicians,
medical coders and registrars. Health information technology is the sector that handles
such issues as computer programming, database management, computer maintenance
and electronic networks. Health informatics is a clinically-oriented field that combines
medicine or nursing with information systems. There may be crossovers in some areas.
Clinical informaticists, for example, might also perform some programming or database
management tasks.

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Qualifications for a Nursing Informatics Specialist

Education, Experience and Certification

CARRER IN NURSING Technology and Informatics

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