In the modern era, there are few professions that do not to some extent rely on data
In the modern era, there are few professions that do not to some extent rely on data. Stockbrokers rely on market data to advise clients on financial matters. Meteorologists rely on weather data to forecast weather conditions, while realtors rely on data to advise on the purchase and sale of property. In these and other cases, data not only helps solve problems, but adds to the practitioner’s and the discipline’s body of knowledge.
Of course, the nursing profession also relies heavily on data. The field of nursing informatics aims to make sure nurses have access to the appropriate date to solve healthcare problems, make decisions in the interest of patients, and add to knowledge.
In this Discussion, you will consider a scenario that would benefit from access to data and how such access could facilitate both problem-solving and knowledge formation.
To Prepare:
Reflect on the concepts of informatics and knowledge work as presented in the Resources.
Consider a hypothetical scenario based on your own healthcare practice or organization that would require or benefit from the access/collection and application of data. Your scenario may involve a patient, staff, or management problem or gap.
By Day 3 of Week 1
Post a description of the focus of your scenario. Describe the data that could be used and how the data might be collected and accessed. What knowledge might be derived from that data? How would a nurse leader use clinical reasoning and judgment in the formation of knowledge from this experience?
Evolving Role of the Nursing Informatics
Specialist
Lynn M. NAGLEa, Walter SERMEUS b, Alain JUNGERc
a Lawrence S. Bloomberg, Faculty of Nursing, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario,
Canada b
Leuven Institute for Healthcare Policy, University of Leuven, Belgium cUniversity Hospital of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
Abstract. The scope of nursing informatics practice has been evolving over the
course of the last 5 decades, expanding to address the needs of health care
organizations and in response to the evolution of technology. In parallel, the
educational preparation of nursing informatics specialists has become more
formalized and shaped by the requisite competencies of the role. In this chapter,
the authors describe the evolution of nursing informatics roles, scope and focus of
practice, and anticipated role responsibilities and opportunities for the future.
Further, implications and considerations for the future are presented.
Keywords. Nursing informatics specialist, role function, connected health, data
science, big data, personalized medicine, clinical intelligence, virtual care
1. Introduction
By 2018, 22 million households will use virtual care solutions, up from less than a
million in 2013. Average (healthcare) visits among these adopter households will
increase from 2 per year in 2013 to 6 per year in 2018, which include both acute care
and preventive follow-up services in a variety of care settings—at home, at retail kiosk
or at work. [1]
Nursing informatics roles have taken many forms in focus and function over the
last decades; suffice it to say that they have not been consistently described or defined
in terms of scope of practice. At the time of this writing it is clear that role of nursing
informatics specialists will continue to evolve at an increasingly rapid rate in the
coming years. The unfolding of new health care paradigms will bring greater
connectivity between care providers and patients, include a wide array of emerging
technologies and an increasing emphasis on data analytics will make the integration of
informatics competencies into every area of nursing an imperative.
2. Brief history of roles of the past and present
The earliest and most common types of informatics work assumed by nurses has
included: oversight of organizational workload measurement systems, project
leadership, systems educator, and nursing unit or departmental information technology
resource. In many instances, these roles were enacted on the basis of a specific
identified organizational need and were often secondments to the Information
Technology Department. It was not unusual for these roles to have the designation of
Forecasting Informatics Competencies for Nurses in the Future of Connected Health J. Murphy et al. (Eds.)
© 2017 IMIA and IOS Press. This article is published online with Open Access by IOS Press and distributed under the terms
of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC 4.0). doi:10.3233/978-1-61499-738-2-212
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“IT nurse” [2]. As role responsibilities and job titles have been widely varied, so have
the qualifications for each. The need for more specificity and consistency in nursing
informatics roles has been recognized for several years [3, 4, 5].
The advent of formal education programs for nurses interested in specializing in
informatics has occurred in conjunction with increasing sophistication in the use of
information and communication technologies (ICT) in clinical practice settings. Today,
nurses have the option to pursue specialization and credentials at a variety of levels
including graduate specialization and specialty certification. Advanced credentials and
certification (e.g., Certified Professional in Healthcare Information and Management
Systems – CPHIMS) have afforded nurses the opportunity to achieve credibility and
legitimacy regarding the specialty informatics knowledge and skills they bring to bear
in nursing practice and academia and healthcare in general [6]. This credibility has
been recognized with the development of executive level positions such as the “Chief
Nursing Informatics Officer” (CNIO) in some countries. The position of the “Chief
Medical Informatics Officer” (CMIO) is much more prevalent and deemed essential in
medium and large health care organizations while the C-level nursing counterpart
remains less common. Several authors [7-11] have described the role and competencies
for these senior informatics positions, yet the valuing of these positions remains limited
among health care provider organizations.
In addition to the evolution of formalized training programs for nurses interested in
informatics, the specialty of nursing informatics has continued to evolve and has
become recognized in local jurisdictions, nationally and internationally. Groups of like-
minded nurses have organized into special interest groups affiliated with larger
interdisciplinary organizations (e.g., International Medical Informatics Association –
Special Interest Group on Nursing Informatics (IMIA-NI-SIG)). Organizations such as
the Canadian Nursing Informatics Association (CNIA), the American Nursing
Informatics Association (ANIA), the Nursing Informatics Working Group of the
European Federation for Medical Informatics (EFMI-NURSIE) are examples of forums
for nurses to network, collaborate and profile their work in informatics. The existence
of these specialty organizations has served to further legitimize the work of nurse
informaticians and provided a venue for advancing regional, national and international
efforts in nursing informatics. Through conferences, meetings and the offering of
educational sessions, virtually and face to face, these networks of nurse informaticists
have collectively advanced the practice and science of nursing informatics. A case in
point is the International Nursing Informatics Congress and post-conference, now held
bi-annually and hosted by countries across the globe. Outputs of these meetings include
publications such as this one; benefitting nursing informatics specialists and the nursing
profession worldwide.
At the time of this writing, we find nursing informatics specialists in virtually
every clinical practice setting. The roles and focus of their work endeavors are wide
and varied. The titles of “informatics nurse”, “nurse informatician”, and “nursing
informatics specialist” are but a few of the titles applied to nurses working in the field.
Many of the roles of the past and present have been more extensively described
elsewhere [2,12]. For the purpose of this chapter, the authors use the title of nursing
informatics specialist to provide illustrations of the potential focus of these roles
current and future.
Roles to date have largely focused on supporting acquisition, implementation and
evaluation of clinical information systems in health care organizations. As noted by
McLane and Turley [4], “informaticians are prepared to influence, contribute to, and
mold the realization of an organization’s vision for knowledge management” (p.30).
L.M. Nagle et al. / Evolving Role of the Nursing Informatics Specialist 213
Nurses have been in pivotal roles at every step of the systems life cycle and
instrumental in the success of deployments at every level of an organization. From the
provision of executive oversight, project management, systems education and training,
and analytics, nurses in clinical settings have become core to organizations’
information management infrastructure and support.
In addition to health care provider organizations, nursing informatics specialists
can be found in the employ of technology vendors, retail outlets, and consulting firms
while many others have created their own entrepreneurial enterprise. Over the last few
decades, technology vendors, hardware and software, have come to appreciate the
invaluable contribution of nurses to the development, sales and deployment of their
solutions. Throughout the world, nurses are also engaged in academic pursuits to
advance the knowledge base of nursing informatics through the conduct of research.
Efforts are underway in many countries to advance the adoption and integration of
entry-to-practice informatics competencies into undergraduate nursing programs.
Notwithstanding some of the ongoing gaps in the provision of informatics content in
undergraduate nursing education, many courses and programs have been…
