So You Want to Be a Nurse Informatician? Part I - Education
- IT_Nurse
- Aug 21, 2021
- 4 min read
Last week I had the pleasure to connect with a Nursing Student who is interested in Nursing Informatics (NI). It turned out that we have similar backgrounds: we both started out in technical areas, we both enjoy code and process improvement, and we both recognized early on in our experiences with healthcare that if we could bring these skills with us as nurses that we could not just help our patients, but the healthcare system as a whole. Honestly, chatting with this student was so much fun and I'm excited to see what they accomplish in the future.
They also had some really good questions. We talked about how I started in NI, what education and training I found helpful, and the different NI jobs I've had. It occurred to me that this could make for a fun series of posts here on my blog, in case anyone else is running into similar questions. Now, I'm certainly not an expert on the topic, so if you see something you feel I've portrayed incorrectly, please let me know in the comments below. My goal is to share some of my experiences in my 10-ish years in NI in Atlantic Canada, so there will likely be some things that are specific to my part of the country as well. But even so, I feel like it's still worthwhile to put this information out there.
So let's start with the education component. Nursing Informatics is within the domain of Nursing, and for simplicity in this post I'm going to stick with the pathway to becoming a Registered Nurse (RN). Not to say that if you have another Nursing background such as Licensed Practical Nurse or Personal Support Worker, along with a background in Information Technology, that you wouldn't be successful in NI. Honestly, in my experience, NI is still a newish field in Canada, and I've seen the line "we would also consider other combinations of education and experience" on many NI job posts.
To become a Registered Nurse in Canada, the first step is to obtain a Bachelor of Nursing (BN) or Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BScN) degree at the University level. If you are lucky, during this time you might have the opportunity to take a Nursing Informatics or Health Informatics course. However, the only undergraduate level course I have been able to find is through Athabasca University:
Athabasca Univerisity
Once you have obtained your BN or BScN degree, the next step is to write and pass the NCLEX exam to become a Registered Nurse.
You may then decide to work in a clinical setting, or you may decide to continue your education and start on the path to a Masters of Nursing (MN) with a concentration in informatics, or Masters of Health Informatics (MHI) graduate degree. Personally, I spent some time as a bedside RN in the acute care setting, and I felt that experience has served me well. I have also not completed a Masters degree; so far my Computer Science degree (and IT experience) along with my BN degree (and clinical experience) has helped me to become the successful applicant for several NI jobs.
If you are interested in completing graduate level education in NI or MHI, here's a quick list of what I was able to find through a quick Google search. I was a little surprised that I wasn't able to find a MN program with a concentration of NI; they are all MHI programs. I may be missing a program you know about that didn't show up in my search (if so, please let me know!), but on further reflection this makes sense. None of my NI jobs so far have dealt with Nursing in a vacuum; Nursing is part of the very complex web that is the healthcare system.
University of Victoria
University of Toronto
Dalhousie University
University of Waterloo
Queen's University
Western University
McMaster University
I was also able to find a couple of Health Informatics Certificates:
Ryerson University
York University
I would also like to make a note that, at least when I entered NI 10 years ago, I was proof that it wasn't necessary for your journey to start with Nursing. I started with my Computer Science degree, and was fortunate to be accepted into an accelerated 2-year BN program. Honestly, if you have a technical background and decide on NI as your next step, once you complete your BN/RN path you may have luck applying for NI jobs.
Which is a great segue into part II of this series...NI jobs! Stay tuned; I hope to have this piece ready in the next week or so.
Thanks for visiting!
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