What is Nursing Informatics

What is Nursing Informatics and Global Connectivity?

Nursing Informatics (NI) is a field of study that combines nursing science with various informational and analytical sciences to organize, define, analyze, and communicate data and knowledge sets in nursing practice (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2018). Anyone in a clinical setting can use the information generated and utilized by nursing informatics, but it generally will have a nursing centric focus. Typically nursing informaticists will have a technology background in computer science that will allow them to understand how to collect, analyze, and store data in the clinical setting. In the past, as the use of technology increased in the clinical setting, the people creating informational systems were simply technicians or computer programmers who possessed no knowledge or expertise in nursing. As a result, informational systems were designed that attempted to solve nursing problems but did not understand how nurses and clinicians utilize and process data. Nursing informaticists close this gap and represent the virtual glue that understands how to communicate with everyone in the clinical setting to create a unified solution.

Global Connectivity (GC) is an aspect of Nursing Informatics that identifies the global impact of nursing informatics. In today’s connected world of the internet and cheap smart devices, access to information is quick and very convenient. In milliseconds, data from a patient blood pressure monitor can be sent to a server in another country for analysis. However, this ease of access to the flow of information makes security one of the biggest concerns for nursing informaticists. Who owns the data? Who has the right to see and use the data? What regulations exist in other countries that may impact the collection and dissemination of information from another country? These are just some of the areas of concern that a nursing informaticist must address.

As you can see, nursing informaticists must possess a range of skills and abilities to be able to identify a problem in the clinical setting, research and develop the solution, and be able to implement it. Bedside care is important and at one time was the only domain for nurses, but the increased use of technology now demands that nurses know how to use information from a variety of sources to care for their patients.