The role of informatics nurses has expanded greatly, providing a significant impact on patient safety and overall care, as well as workflow and productivity improvements, according to the 2015 HIMSS Impact of the Informatics Nurse Survey.
The poll of 576 respondents found that the longer a healthcare organization has employed informatics professionals, the greater their impact and value, according to the survey announcement.
Ninety-five percent of organizations were most likely to employ an informatics professional with a nursing background. More than half, 58 percent, also report that their organizations employsan informatics professional with an "other" clinical background and 55 percent reported that their organizations employ an informatics professional who is either a physician or has a medical background.
Nearly two-thirds of respondents, 61 percent, work for organizations that employ an informatics professional in a leadership position.
Other findings:
- Sixty percent of respondents indicat that informatics nurses have a high degree of impact on the quality of care.
- Informatics nurses have a high degree of impact on clinical systems, with their greatest value perceived to be the implementation phase (85 percent) and optimization phase (83 percent) of clinical systems process as well as system design/configuration (70.8 percent.)
- With clinical systems processes, they view their greatest impact on workflow (80.3 percent), patient safety (76.2 percent) and user acceptance (75 percent).
- As organizations consider emerging technologies, informatics nurses say their greatest role is in medical device integration (70 percent). Respondents were least likely to say that informatics played a role in predictive modeling.
The role that nurses have in healthcare technology is rapidly growing. From chief nursing informatics officers to chief information officers, they take on new leadership roles in health IT and have a major impact on healthcare innovation and delivery.
Informatics is also an important area for nurses to find growth, Janet Grady, University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown's vice president for academic affairs and chairwoman of nursing and health, told Military Times.
"Nurses work with a lot more information," she says. "That's an opportunity that didn't exist even 10 years ago."
To learn more:
- here's the survey
- read the announcement