Nursing and Healthcare

Nursing Informatics

Nursing informatics is a branch of health informatics that combines the management and processing of nursing data and the continued education of nursing staff towards an automated health information system. According to the International Medical Informatics Association, “Nursing informatics is the integration of nursing, its information, and information management with information processing and communication technology, to support the health of people world-wide.”

Often overlooked, nursing informatics is an integral component of the struggle to convert medical institutions to a paperless system. Usually nurses have to take on the responsibility of training in IT without funding from their employers. It is necessary to educate and compromise with nursing staff to find a system that both meets their need and is comfortable for them to use. Nurses can be a powerful ally for implementing new technologies in the medical community because they have to communicate between doctors, patients and administration.