Competency in the Informatics Field for a Nursing Leader
The author of the post provides invaluable insight and information about nurse informatics as well as the role of certification as a document of the full qualification. The post raises interesting points about how certification shows not only one’s increased level of expertise but also credibility, and marketability, and provides status. I would like to provide more insight and perspective based on new information. An empirical study of the nurse informatics industry reveals that 76.2% of all relevant job postings were for clinical informaticians, and 62.1% of them required a bachelor’s degree as a minimum (McLane et al., 2021). In addition, an RN license was needed for 40.8% of all job postings (McLane et al., 2021). However, the most interesting point of the study is that “only 7.3% required formal education in health informatics” (McLane et al., 2021, p. 285). Therefore, the author’s statement in regards to status and marketability is highly accurate and supported with evidence.
Another study focused on analyzing the alignment level between the American Medical Informatics Association Health Informatics Core Competencies and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing Graduate-Level Nursing Informatics Competencies. It is stated that “agreement across the two maps ranged from 14% to 60% per American Association of Colleges of Nursing competency, revealing alignment between the two groups competencies according to knowledge, skills, and attitudes” (Monsen et al., 2019, p. 396). It is also stated that different nursing informatics certification procedures have similar patterns regarding at least 14 competencies (Faustorilla, 2017). In other words, it indicates that there relatively high level of overlap, which means certification makes it easier to acquire additional credentials, which supports the statement about credibility increase. Therefore, empirical data substantiates the post’s points about certification being important as a document, which provides status, marketability, and credibility.
The author of the post provides a comprehensive perspective on important professional objectives in one’s nurse informatics career. I would like to provide more insight in regards to the leadership aspect of nursing informatics. The main reason is that it is an essential part of not only the career plan of the author but also for all nurse informaticists. A study of the field of interest suggests that there is a shortage of nursing informatics leaders despite major growth in chief positions for informaticists in a wide range of healthcare organizations (Backonja, 2020). Such high demand for leaders is not only substantiated by the needs in the educational arena but also in regards to effective and efficient utilization of technology to enhance patient care (Backonja, 2020). It also includes making essential integrational decisions and identifying key problem areas in the health delivery process (Backonja, 2020). In other words, there are many reasons why nursing informaticists are in high demand.
Because the nursing informatics field is a relatively new one, the leadership scarcity also necessitates the involvement of nurse informaticists n the human resource management processes. It is stated that such leaders are greatly needed to identify core competencies to improve the hiring process of informaticists (Strudwick et al., 2019). Lastly, it should be noted that informatics competencies are becoming more requested and relevant for other nursing leaders (Kassam et al., 2017). It is facilitated by the fact that the current nursing processes and healthcare field in general, becoming more reliant on the competencies and skills of nurse informaticists. Therefore, a nursing leader with no nurse informatics background will still need to have a certain level of competency in the informatics field to occupy a leadership position.
References
Backonja, U. (2020). Understanding support for a nursing informatics leadership pipeline: An ANI emerging leader project. CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing, 38(11), 543-544.
Faustorilla, J. F. (2017). Development of an informatics nurse specialist program and certification process for the Republic of the Philippines. Ascendens Asia Journal of Multidisciplinary Research Conference Proceedings, 1(1), 1-8.
Kassam, I., Nagle, L., & Strudwick, G. (2017). Informatics competencies for nurse leaders: Protocol for a scoping review. BMJ Open, 7(12), 1-4.
McLane, T. M., Hoyt, R., Hodge, C., Weinfurter, E., Reardon, E. E., & Monsen, K. A. (2021). What industry wants: An empirical analysis of health informatics job postings. Applied Clinical Informatics, 12(2), 285–292.
Monsen, K. A., Bush, R. A., Jones, J., Manos, E. L., Skiba, D. J., & Johnson, S. B. (2019). Alignment of American Association of Colleges of Nursing Graduate-Level Nursing Informatics Competencies with American Medical Informatics Association Health Informatics Core Competencies. CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing, 37(8), 396–404.
Strudwick, G., Nagle, L., Kassam, I., Pahwa, M., & Sequeira, L. (2019). Informatics competencies for nurse leaders. JONA: The Journal of Nursing Administration, 49(6), 323–330.