What are careers in nursing informatics?

Chief information officer and informatics nurse are careers related to the field of nursing informatics. Careers in this field begin with being a registered nurse and advancing your education in the specific area of informatics.

• Chief Information Officer

  Nursing informatics involves the use of technology to better administer nursing care in hospitals and other medical institutions. Chief information officers oversee employees and technology to achieve productivity and streamline costs.

  CIOs in the nursing field typically have a great deal of nursing experience and have worked in multiple management-level positions prior to functioning as a CIO.

• Informatics Nurse

  Informatics nurses, on the other hand, work directly with nurses and use the information that they gather combined with technology to propose changes in health care protocols and individual patient care plans.

  An informatics nurse may see patterns develop when examining data to reveal new ways of achieving an outcome while saving money or increasing the comfort of the patient. The shift from paper to electronic record keeping and patient charting is a key responsibility for informatics nurses.

  Making sure that the electronic records kept by multiple different healthcare providers are compatible and able to be accessed easily helps ensure that the patient does not incur any unnecessary delays in treatment or diagnosis.

  Informatics nurses typically have a master's degree in nursing informatics. Some employers will hire tech-savvy RNs for informatics positions with the expectation that they will continue to advance their education after being hired.