Nursing Informatics is a specialty of Medical Informatics (referred to in the broader sense as Health Informatics or eHealth) and deals with the support of nursing by information systems in delivery, documentation, administration and evaluation of patient care and prevention of diseases.

Contents

1 Definitions 2 External Links 3 Organisations 4 Informatics educational opportunities for nurses

Definitions

Various definitions of Nursing Informatics have been proposed, perhaps the most widely currently accepted definition comes from the International Medical Informatics Association - Nursing Informatics Special Interest Group (IMIA-NI (http://www.imia.org/ni/index.html)), adopted August 1998, Seoul, Korea :

Nursing informatics is the integration of nursing, its information, and information management with information processing and communication technology, to support the health of people world wide.

An early (and still valid) defintion was proposed by Hannah 1985 The use of information technologies in relation to any of the functions that are within the purview of nursing and are carried out by nurses in the performance of their duties. This comprises the care of patients, administration, education and research.

Other definitions also exist. For example, William Goossen, from The Netherlands, developed a longer definition:

Goossen WTF (1996). Nursing information management and processing: a framework and definition for systems analysis, design and evaluation. International Journal of Biomedical Computing, 40, 187-195.

"Nursing informatics is the multidisciplinairy scientific endeavor of analyzing, formalizing and modeling how nurses collect and manage data, process data into information and knowledge, make knowledge-based decisions and inferences for patient care, and use this empirical and experiential knowledge in order to broaden the scope and enhance the quality of their professional practice. The scientific methods central to nursing informatics are focused on:

• (1) using a discourse about motives for computerized systems,
• (2) analyzing, formalizing and modeling nursing information processing and nursing knowledge for all components of nursing practice: clinical practice, management, education and research,
• (3) investigating determinants, conditions, elements, models and processes in order to design, and implement as well as test the effectiveness and efficiency of computerized information, (tele)communication and network systems for nursing practice, and
• (4) studying the effects of these systems on nursing practice."

External Links

A number of websites provide collections of definitions, and/or attempts to provide a definition. These include:

- Jack Yensen's 'Nursing Informatics Map and Definitions', available at: ([1] (http://www.langara.bc.ca/vnc/nursemap.htm))

- Heather Strachan's paper on the nursing-informatics.net website ([2] (http://www.nursing-informatics.net))

- Sue Newbold's FAQ([3] (http://nursing.umaryland.edu/~snewbold/sknfaqni.htm))

- www.informaticsnurse.com - an online community for nursing informatics professionals ([4] (http://www.informaticsnurse.com))

Organisations

Many organisations exist around the world concerned with nursing informatics. Some are international, some are regional within countries or continents, while others address local needs within larger countries (eg, there are many groups in the USA).

The best collection of links to organisations' websites is maintained by Sue Newbold, from the USA. This can be found at:

- Sue Newbold's Nursing Informatics Special Interest Groups page ([5] (http://nursing.umaryland.edu/~snewbold/skngroup.htm))

Informatics educational opportunities for nurses

- An online directory of nursing informatics degree programs ([6] (http://www.informaticsnurse.com/links/browselinks.php?c=2))

Informatics educational opportunities for nurses

By Brian Gugerty, MS, DNS, RN

Reprinted by permission, Eclipsys Update: Nursing, Eclipsys Corporation, fall 2004

This article is a bit US centric, but perhaps it will stimulate some more global contributions on this subject.

Educational opportunities for nurses to enrich their informatics knowledge span from attending a one-hour presentation to devoting three to five years of their life pursuing a PhD. Most of these opportunities are available from professional organizations, colleges and universities, and company-affiliated user network groups.

This article will discuss some of these opportunities, including grassroots nursing informatics professional organizations, national and international informatics professional organizations, company-affiliated user networks, informatics certifications, and post-baccalaureate as well as graduate certificates and degrees available form schools of nursing. In some cases, it is equally appropriate for nurses to pursue graduate informatics degrees from schools and colleges other than nursing, but that topic is beyond the scope of this article.

Please make note of all acronyms. There will be a test at the end of this article. :-)

Grassroots nursing informatics

Let’s start with the grassroots nursing informatics professional organizations. These organizations are unaffiliated with very formal, generally multidisciplinary, national or international informatics professional organizations. The larger of the grassroots groups, such as the Capital Area Roundtable on Informatics in Nursing (CARING) and the American Nursing Informatics Association (ANIA) are pushing beyond the regions of their origin, Baltimore/Washington and California respectively.

Most of the grassroots nursing informatics professional organizations, however, have fairly circumscribed areas from which they draw their membership. The Minnesota Nursing Informatics Group (MINING) primarily has Minnesotans as members, while the Midwest Alliance for Nursing Informatics covers Chicago-land but also parts of Indiana, Wisconsin and other parts of Illinois. The missions of these groups are generally education and networking. They meet periodically, host speakers, workshops and even small conferences. Their membership fees are very low and almost all of the groups are actively seeking members. I’ll include more information about how to find a grassroots group in your area later in this article.

National and international informatics

There are a number of national and international informatics professional organizations. The most notable to nurses are the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA; www.amia.org) and the Healthcare Information Systems Society (HIMSS; www.himss.org). AMIA used to be considered the more academic-oriented of these two large professional organizations, and still is to a certain extent. It is made up mainly of practicing clinical informaticians and academics. AMIA’s mission is to promote excellence in the research, education and practice of medical informatics. AMIA has a Fall Symposium and Spring Conference annually that offer outstanding, rigorous education on a wide variety of topics in biomedical, clinical, health and nursing informatics.

HIMSS’ mission includes, education/knowledge sharing, advocacy, collaboration and innovation in healthcare information and management systems. HIMSS membership is larger than AMIA’s and includes healthcare IT personnel, healthcare information system company representatives and clinical informaticians. HIMSS has a myriad of educational opportunities, some that are very accessible through its local chapter affiliates.

Of note is the largest annual gathering in all of healthcare informatics, the HIMSS Annual Conference and Exhibition. This event features numerous education sessions; a one-day nursing informatics symposium, and pre-conference workshops at the Annual Conference, and the Exhibition features about 700 health informatics companies and organizations in a massive exhibit hall. Both AMIA and HIMSS offer journals, books and other publications that help you to stay current on a wide variety of informatics topics and subjects.

I have made a distinction between grassroots organizations and more-formal and larger national/ international informatics professional organizations. Susan Newbold, in her meticulously up-to-date and authoritative listing of such groups, does not make that distinction. Ms. Newbold’s “Nursing Informatics Special Interest Groups” listing, http://nursing.umaryland.edu/%7Esnewbold/skngroup.htm, is an outstanding, comprehensive resource of such groups. Through this one site, you can visit the home pages of dozens of professional groups relevant to nursing informaticians, and then — through those home pages — tap into a wealth of informatics educational opportunities. Ms. Newbold’s site is well worth book-marking.

SINI, WINI

Two continuing education events deserve special mention due to their longevity and relevance to nurses. The Summer Institute in Nursing Informatics (SINI) (nursing.umaryland.edu/informatics) is the preeminent nursing informatics continuing education event in the world. In its 15th year, SINI is held annually at the University of Maryland in Baltimore and has attendance of over 400, with a growing Web-cast audience. It features pre- and post-institute workshops, invited speaker educational presentations, peer-reviewed paper and poster presentations, networking events and more.

The Weekend Immersion In Nursing Informatics (WINI; (www.nursing.umaryland.edu/~snewbold/wini.htm) follows the content outline for the ANCC Informatics Nurse Certification Exam but is billed as more than a review course. WINI is most often hosted by nursing informatics grassroots professional organizations, schools of nursing and healthcare information system companies. It is a popular and very successful educational offering, having been repeated more than 50 times throughout the country.

User groups such as EUN

Having been associated with a healthcare information system company-affiliated user network (sometimes called user groups) throughout the 1990s, I know first hand just how valuable an educational forum these types of networks can be. When saying goodbye to colleagues at the last day of user network, time and time again I heard “this was the most practical conference I ever attended.” One look through the 30-page 2004 Eclipsys User Network Annual Conference Preliminary Program Guide shows you the breadth and depth that these types of conferences now cover.

One strategy for keeping up with the expanding informatics knowledge base is to attend a user network conference annually or bi-annually, a major national or international informatics professional organization conference bi-annually, and a grassroots nursing informatics professional organizations meeting two or three times per year.

Credentialing

There are now several certifications that a nurse informatician can consider obtaining. These certifications can strengthen a resume, one’s credibility, and in some cases — notably government service — lead directly to pay advancements. The American Nurse Credentialing Center (ANCC), a subsidiary of the American Nurses Association (ANA), offers the Informatics Nurse Certification Exam (INCE).

To qualify for this exam, one needs a baccalaureate or higher degree in nursing or a baccalaureate degree in a relevant field, an active RN license, to have practiced as an RN for two years, to have worked a minimum of 2000 hours in the field of informatics in the past three years and had 30 relevant continuing education contact hours in the past three years. The exam content areas are system life cycle; human factors; information technology; information management and knowledge generation; professional practice, trends and issues; and models and theories. More information about the Informatics Nurse Certification Exam can be found at www.nursingworld.org/ancc/cert.html.

There are now four certifications relevant to nurse informaticians available through HIMSS. Qualifying to sit for these exams is substantially equivalent to the INCE, but one person who sat for one of the HIMSS exams and the INCE told me that the HIMSS exam was significantly harder. The four HIMSS certifications available are: Certified Professional in Healthcare Information and Management Systems (CPHIMS); Certified in Healthcare Security (CHS); Certified in Healthcare Privacy (CHP) and Certified in Healthcare Privacy and Security (CHPS). More information about the HIMSS certifications can be can be found at www.himss.org/asp/certification_about.asp.

Master’s and post-master’s degrees

There are now many schools of nursing in colleges and universities that offer master’s degrees and post-master’s certificates in nursing informatics or health informatics or clinical informatics or a similarly designated degree. About half of those also offer PhDs in nursing informatics. A few offer post-baccalaureate certificates in nursing informatics.

As mentioned in the beginning of this article, there are also now many graduate informatics degrees from schools and colleges other than nursing, mostly housed out of schools of health science and medicine. Additionally, degrees in law, business, information management, information science, human factors and others may be the correct educational path to pursue for certain nurse informaticians to further their careers and contribute to the field.

There are many different approaches to advanced degrees in nursing informatics. All are valid but, most likely, only a few are right for you. I’ll compare two programs as an example, both housed in schools of nursing.

The University of Colorado offers a 36-credit-hour Master of Science degree with a nursing specialization in healthcare informatics. The Colorado program combines 12 credits of Master of Science nursing core courses, with three core informatics courses that emphasize human computer interaction to create a foundation. Onto this foundation the learner builds nine credits of specialty courses. At the present time, the Colorado program requires students to take specialty courses in the application areas of decision support or e-health.

By contrast, the University of Maryland offers a 39-credit-hour Master of Science degree in nursing informatics consists of four sets of courses: 1) Healthcare research, professional issues and population outcomes; 2) information management/computer science courses; 3) management science courses, and 4) nursing informatics courses. A strong generalist in nursing or healthcare informatics is the output of the University of Maryland approach. Both are long-standing, reputable programs, and both have fully on-line degree options.

If you are interested in a degree in nursing informatics or a related field, the outstanding Web site hosted by the AMIA Nursing Informatics Working group is a great way to begin to get informed about the many exciting and challenging choices available to you. See www.amia.org/working/ni/education/education.html.

It’s test time

OK, now for the acronym test! Just kidding of course, but I bet some of you are acronymed out. This article began with educational opportunities facilitated by grassroots nursing informatics professional organizations. Many of these are low cost and available in your city or region. National and international informatics professional organizations like AMIA and HIMSS offer a full array of educational offerings from Web casts on their Web sites to world-class informatics conferences. SINI in Baltimore every July and WINI, coming to a town near you, are smaller than the AMIA and HIMSS conferences but more NI-specific. Don’t forget about the very practical user network conferences.

Now that you have all of those contact hours, it may be time to sit for a certification exam. Passing the Informatics Nurse Certification Exam or one of the HIMSS certification exams will allow you to stand out in the growing field of informatics professionals.

Still not enough? Then it may be time to go on for a post-baccalaureate certificate, Master of Science degree, post-Masters certificate or PhD.

As you can see, there are a wealth of educational opportunities open to you.

• * *

Dr. Gugerty is an assistant professor at the University of Maryland School of Nursing in Baltimore. He can be reached at gugerty@son.umaryland.edu.