Nurse Informaticists Increasingly Popular
By Katie Wike, contributing writer
The need for analyzing raw data and creating reports that can be easily interpreted has spurred a demand for nurse informaticists across the nation
According to HIMSS, nursing informatics (NI) is “a specialty that integrates nursing science, computer science, and information science to manage and communicate data, information, knowledge, and wisdom in nursing practice. NI supports consumers, patients, nurses, and other providers in their decision making in all roles and settings. This support is accomplished through the use of information structures, information processes, and information technology.”
Because of the clinical experience gained working on the hospital floor, nurses have proven to be valuable additions to hospital IT staffs. The most recent HIMSS report, HIMSS 2011 Nursing Informatics Workforce Survey, notes the average nurse informaticist has been working in the nursing field for sixteen years and therefore has the ability to meld clinical and technological knowledge.
The report concludes, “Based on this survey and compared to the surveys conducted in 2004 and 2007, the healthcare industry is recognizing the value of nursing informatics. One metric in particular speaks volumes to the importance of nurse informaticists in the healthcare industry: base salary. The level of base compensation this year is significantly more than the data generated in the past two surveys, with an average salary of nearly $100,000 (and even higher in consulting and in vendor settings), which is impressive considering the current economic landscape. Compared to the average salary in 2004 ($69,500) and in 2007 ($83,675), the average salaries reported in 2011 are almost 17 percent higher than in 2007 and 42 percent higher than in 2004. Future surveys will determine whether the base compensation ceiling has been reached.”
Fifty-six percent of respondents to the HIMSS survey reported having earned a postgraduate degree and 35 percent of those hold a master’s degree. Nursing experience is critical to the job, however not all respondents to the HIMSS survey still worked in hospitals. “Less than half of the survey respondents (48 percent) reported that their primary workplace is a hospital while an additional 20 percent reported that they work at the corporate offices of a healthcare system. Nine percent work in an academic setting and five percent work for a consulting firm or a vendor.”
Generally, nurses with clinical experience and an interest in healthcare IT are selected for this position. Surprisingly, “The majority of respondents in all the surveys indicated that they have no formal informatics/education training.”
“I’ve been a nurse for twenty-five years, specializing in critical care and cardiology,” Audrey Funt, RN, MSN, Clinical Informaticist, Burholme Campus of the Temple University Health System, told Health IT Analytics. “I took some courses in IT and project management when I went back for my master’s degree, and then I did an internship in informatics, and decided that I really liked that and it was a good fit for me.”
“We were getting ready to implement a new EHR for the emergency department, and they knew I had interest in that area,” Funt continued. “So I went onto that build and did it from the ground up. From there, we decided to do an EHR throughout the hospital so that seemed like a natural path to follow. Then we did the CPOE build, and they decided what they had really wanted for a long time was a clinical informaticist that would have the pulse of all of the applications, because there are so many. It just seemed like a natural progression.”
Data from the HIMSS report shows nurses who show the ability to balance clinical knowledge and informatics savvy are in high demand; especially with MU requirements and quality reporting a must. “You need someone who has clinical nursing experience and someone who also has the computer piece,” says Funt. “It’s a little difficult to find both of those, so it really helps if you have a clinical person who can really talk the talk and walk the walk because they’ve been there.”
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