Development of the NIS Role
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In the early to mid 1980’s, Canadian hospitals began implementing EHIS:
- These systems included clinical applications such as order entry and results reporting that nurses were expected to use.
- Information Systems (IS) Departments quickly realized that they could not implement these systems without some clinical knowledge of operations.
- Hospitals hired nurses to provide this clinical-technical bridge in response to the need for clinical input.
- These nurses had a variety of titles such as “Nursing Systems Coordinator,” “Nurse Analyst” and “Nursing Coordinator-Computer Project.” (Hebert, 2007)
NIS milestones:
In Canada: The Nursing Informatics Special Interest Group has been the first and strongest special interest group of COACH: Canada's Health Informatics Association:
In 2004, The Technology Informatics Guiding Education Reform (TIGER) initiative was created out of necessity to guarantee that the use of informatics was seen as a core competency for all healthcare workers (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2012, p.132)
- Although nurses have been in NI roles for many years, NI was only designated a specialty by the American Nurses Association in 1991 (Hebert, 2007, p.26).
- Currently in Canada there are too few nurses specializing in informatics for the Canadian Nurses Association to develop NI Certification standards and exams (Hebert. 2007, p.26).
- " The American Nurses Association officially established the designation of information nurse specialists and educational programs geared toward nursing informatics popped up across the nation” (Ericksen, 2009, p.35)
- The first nursing informatics certification was written back in 1995 (Saba & McMormick, as cited by McGonigle& Mastrian, 2012)
In Canada: The Nursing Informatics Special Interest Group has been the first and strongest special interest group of COACH: Canada's Health Informatics Association:
- COACH was formed in 1975 by several health professionals and vendors in the medical industry, who recognized that significant sharing of ideas and efforts must take place in order to enable Canadian health institutions to effectively use information technology and systems. The focus has since expanded to include not only the technology and the systems, but also the effective use of health information for decision-making (COACH, 2014).
In 2004, The Technology Informatics Guiding Education Reform (TIGER) initiative was created out of necessity to guarantee that the use of informatics was seen as a core competency for all healthcare workers (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2012, p.132)
- " The TIGER Initiative started as an invitation-only, TIGER Summit...where leaders from nursing practice, education, informatics and technology organizations, government agencies, and other key stakeholders in the healthcare delivery system participated in discussions about the practice of nursing in the 21st century. Participants realized that nursing must transform itself as a profession to provide safer, higher-quality patient care through the use of IT” (Hebda & Calderone, 2010, p.56)