Authors

  1. Ulanday, Kathleen MBA, MHA, BSN, RN-BC, CPHIMS

Abstract

These nurses leverage technology to improve health.

 

Article Content

It's always been a joy to hear about career day from my kids, and to see how well they know what my career as an informatics nurse entails. When my daughter was in third grade and writing about herself for her class, one sentence that caught my eye was, "When I grow up, I want to be a nurse that works on a computer." I asked her what being that kind of nurse meant. Her answer and understanding of the job surprised me: "To help others find information easier."

  
Figure. Kathleen Ula... - Click to enlarge in new windowFigure. Kathleen Ulanday

What we do. Nursing informatics has greatly transformed over the years. The definition of our specialty, recently updated in the third edition of Nursing Informatics: Scope and Standards of Practice, is that nursing informatics "transforms data into needed information and leverages technologies to improve health and health care equity, safety, quality and outcomes." Our specialty comprises informatics nurses and informatics nurse specialists-RNs with formal graduate education in informatics. Some of our tasks include supporting existing and/or new workflows with technology, leading and guiding new technology and its implementation, and reviewing data quality.

 

Why this specialty? A proud practicing informatics nurse for over a decade, I work for a large nonprofit acute care women's and children's hospital. There I lead the design, development, evaluation, and support of clinical technology, while making sure systems are consistent with professional standards of practice.

 

I discovered the specialty while completing a requirement for graduate school. It was to create a survey to capture information from our bedside nurses as part of the application process for Magnet designation. At the time, a nurse's credentials, degrees, publications, and presentations were captured when the nurse applied for their job but weren't updated to reflect their growth as they developed within the organization. My role was as a translator between the technical analyst creating the survey and the nursing leaders choosing the information to be captured. With this first project, I was hooked. I love being able to support nursing and better patient outcomes through technology.

 

Career goals. There are many paths to becoming an informatics nurse. It is a complex field that requires knowledge of multiple areas of study. Understanding clinical workflows shapes the future informatics nurse's understanding not only of how a patient is impacted by the care of the nurse, but also where in the hospital the patient might go to receive care before being discharged to home.

 

Many organizations today have a go-to person known as a "super user," who supports other clinicians by teaching them how to use technology and to understand how changes are made using current technology.

 

Nurses with advanced de-grees in nursing informatics are greatly needed. Nursing informaticist programs can lead to a master's degree in nursing informatics or to a DNP. An Informatics Nursing Certification can be earned through the American Nurses Credentialing Center (see http://www.nursingworld.org/our-certifications/informatics-nurse).

 

Future challenges. The American Nursing Informatics Association (ANIA; https://ania.org) serves more than 3,000 informatics professionals in all 50 states and more than 15 countries. Two important clinical issues concerning informatics nurses that ANIA is addressing are the burden of clinical documentation and downtime. ANIA has collaborated on a study of nursing documentation that aims to promote a national consensus as to what might constitute reduced electronic health record (EHR) documentation during a crisis. In addition, ANIA released a position statement that offers a framework for improving six domains of burden: reimbursement, regulatory, quality, usability, interoperability/standards, and self-imposed burden (see http://www.ania.org/assets/documents/position/ehrBurdenPosition.pdf).

 

Downtime either planned or unplanned in relation to the EHR is any period when the system is unavailable. ANIA also offers a downtime tool kit for purchase titled Nursing Downtime Preparedness from SAFER Guides to Practice, which helps organizations prepare for both planned and unplanned downtime using the Safety Assurance Factors for EHR Resilience (SAFER) guides as a model. For more, see http://www.healthit.gov/topic/safety/safer-guides.