Competencies in Nursing Informatics

Nurses must be skilled not only in their clinical practice or specialty area, but also in the use of technology tools that improve practice and lead to better patient care in today’s fast-paced health care environment. As technology increasingly touches and changes every nurse’s job, basic and advanced technology competencies are required and expected. Nurse-specific technology competencies have been developed by a number of organizations, including the American Nurses Association (ANA), the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), and the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS). The difficulty for nurses is identifying both needs and training opportunities.

You identify the role informatics plays in your professional responsibilities in this Discussion. You identify personal skill and knowledge gaps and then devise a plan for self-improvement.

To get ready:

Examine Nursing Informatics: Scope and Standards of Practice in this week’s Learning Resources, paying special attention to the various functional areas it describes. Consider which areas are relevant to your current nursing responsibilities or a previous position you held. Choose one or two of the most relevant functional areas for this Discussion.
Examine the TIGER Initiative’s list of recommended competencies. Identify at least one skill in each of the three main areas (basic computer competencies, information literacy competencies, and information management competencies) that is relevant to your functional area(s) and that you need to improve. Consider how you could improve your skills in these areas, as well as the resources available within your organization for training and support.
Post the key functional area(s) of nursing informatics relevant to your current position or a position you recently held on or before Day 3, and briefly describe why this area(s) is relevant. Identify the TIGER competencies you chose as essential to the functional area(s) in which you need to improve. Describe why these competencies are required and lay out a strategy for developing them. Include any resources available to you within your organization, as well as the methods for accessing those resources. Consider how developing nursing informatics skills would improve your effectiveness as a nurse.

Readings

Association of American Nurses (2015). Nursing informatics: Scope and Practice Standards (2nd ed.). Author, Silver Springs, MD.
“Nursing Informatics Functional Areas”
The key functional areas of nursing informatics are described in this chapter. It also distinguishes between informatics nurse specialists and informatics nurses.

“Informatics Competencies: Roles and Careers”
This chapter describes an informatics competencies matrix that was created after conducting research. It outlines best practices for utilizing health information technology successfully.

D. McGonigle and K. G. Mastrian (2012). Nursing informatics and knowledge foundations (Laureate Education, Inc., custom ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning, Burlington, MA.
“Nursing Informatics Roles, Competencies, and Skills,” Chapter 8
This chapter discusses the roles, competencies, and skills required for effective nursing informatics practice. In addition, the text discusses the future of nursing informatics.

“Information and Knowledge Needs of Nurses in the Twenty-First Century,” Chapter 9
The author emphasizes the importance of incorporating informatics core concepts and competencies into nursing practice in this chapter. The chapter describes how the incorporation of clinical information technologies into nursing practice necessitates this integration of concepts and competencies.

M. K. Wakefield (2008). The Quality Chasm Series: Nursing Implications Patient safety and quality: An evidence-based handbook for nurses (Vol. 1, pp. 47–66), edited by R. G. Hughes. US Department of Health and Human Services, Rockville, MD. Pages 12–19 can be found at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK2677/.
This chapter examines four Institute of Medicine reports on health-care quality and safety. To Err Is Human, Crossing the Quality Chasm, Health Professions Education: A Bridge to Quality, and Quality Through Collaboration: The Future of Rural Health Care are specifically addressed in this chapter.

S. E. Cheeseman (2011). Are you ready for the digital age? 263–266 in Neonatal Network, 30(4).
This information was obtained from the Walden Library’s databases.

The purpose of this article is to investigate the use of health information technology (HIT) in neonatal intensive care units. Furthermore, the article highlights national initiatives that advocate for the adoption of HIT throughout the health-care delivery system.

AMIA (2012). AMIA. http://www.amia.org/ retrieved
This AMIA (formerly known as the American Medical Informatics Association) homepage describes the organization’s activities, including publications, programs, events, and policies.

The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society is an organization dedicated to the advancement of healthcare information and management systems (2012a). The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society is an organization dedicated to the advancement of healthcare information and management systems. http://www.himss.org/ retrieved
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society’s homepage displays HIMSS research and introduces various tools, events, and resources for professional development.

The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society is an organization dedicated to the advancement of healthcare information and management systems (2012b). Resources/reports. URL: http://www.thetigerinitiative.org/resources.aspx
This TIGER website page contains a list of resources and reports related to the development and implementation of technology informatics.

The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society is an organization dedicated to the advancement of healthcare information and management systems (2012c). TIGER is an initiative. http://www.thetigerinitiative.org/ retrieved
This site contains information on the TIGER Initiative’s phases, as well as related resources and reports, opportunities for strategic partnerships, and general TIGER information.

Educational Reform is being guided by technology and informatics (2009). Final report on the collaborative informatics competencies of TIGER. Obtainable at http://tigercompetencies.pbworks.com/f/TICC Final.pdf
This text describes the foundational informatics competencies that nurses should have in order to provide safe, quality, and competent care. This article, in particular, specifies requirements for nurses in the areas of fundamental computer skills, information literacy, and information management.

The TIGER Project (2009). Recommendations from the TIGER collaborative on informatics competencies for all practicing nurses. http://www.thetigerinitiative.org/docs/TigerReport InformaticsCompetencies.pdf
The Informatics Competencies Collaborative Team’s findings and recommendations are presented in this report. The text describes the team’s background, methodology, findings, and recommendations for future work.

Nurses should be educated on quality and safety (2012). Nurses should be educated on quality and safety. http://www.qsen.org/ retrieved
This website contains information about quality and safety competencies, teaching strategies, faculty resources, pilot schools, and QSEN Consultants.

Media

Executive Producer: Laureate Education, Inc. (2012d). Competencies in health information technology Author lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
Please keep in mind that this media piece is approximately 10 minutes long.

Katie Skelton, Doris Fischer, Carina Perez, Shannon Mori, and Carmen Ferrell are interviewed in this video. They describe key skills and competencies that will enable nurses to reap the benefits of health information technology in the health care setting.

Downloads–Download Video with CCDownload AudioDownload Transcript

Resources that are optional

R. H. Schleyer, C. K. Burch, and M. T. Schoessler (2011). Defining and integrating informatics competencies into the nursing department of a hospital. Computers, Informatics, and Nursing, 29(3), pp. 167–173.