What is Nursing Informatics?

The nurse’s role in patient care has evolved, and so has their role in the use of technology to improve health care delivery. Nursing informatics is the sub-discipline of health informatics that applies information technology to the skills and work of nurses in healthcare. It integrates the science of nursing, computer technology and information science to enhance the quality of the nursing practice, through improved communication, documentation and efficiency.

Assisting in all aspects of a patient’s nursing care from admission to discharge, technology is drastically altering the ways nurses diagnose, treat, administer care for, and manage their patients. The integration of information technology into nursing enables the appropriate flow of data collected by nurses, improving access to patient information at the point of care, and enhancing nursing abilities to benchmark, monitor, and audit quality measures. With nursing informatics, the passion for nursing, technology, and innovation leads to improved patient outcomes and higher quality patient – nurse interactions.

Nurses that want to shape and improve the technology of the nursing practice have the opportunity to merge the two fields through our online Master of Science in Health Informatics degree program. Those more interested in improving patient data and the electronic health record (EHR), are able to do so through our Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Health Information Management.