Nursing Informatics Career Overview

Nurse informaticists develop communication and information technologies and policies. These professionals also serve as educators, researchers, and software engineers to work as chief nursing officers and chief information officers. Some nurse informaticists own businesses, while others find employment in consulting roles.

According to the 2020 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Nursing Informatics Survey, more than 68% of nurse informaticists work in hospitals or health systems. Other common work settings include higher education and ambulatory care.

Nursing informatics job sites include:

Prospective nurse informaticists should consider the advantages and disadvantages of the field. In general, healthcare and nursing careers offer job stability and growth but also present challenges. The list below includes some of the pros and cons.

The path to becoming a nurse informaticist involves education, examination, licensure, and certification.

The HIMSS report states that, among its respondents, 49% of nursing informatics salaries topped $100,000 per year — an increase from 45% in 2017 and 33% in 2014. More than 10% of those surveyed reported earnings of $151,000 or higher, and nearly 25% of those highly paid informatics nurses hold doctoral degrees. Sixty-one percent of doctoral-level nurse informaticists cited salaries of more than $100,000.

Experience can also lead to increased wages, with 71% of nurse informaticists who have logged 11 years or more earning salaries of over $100,000. Only 27% of survey respondents with less than five years of experience reported incomes that high.

Certification may also boost salaries. More than half of those surveyed who hold nursing informatics certification earn more than $100,000 per year.

The HIMSS report found systems implementation, such as choosing and developing new technologies and training nursing staff to use them, as the most common job duty. Other typical tasks include informatics education, project management, system development, and quality initiative planning and reporting.

A career in nursing informatics requires a minimum of a BSN, which usually takes four years to complete. Students with RN licenses can often enter accelerated or bridge BSN programs to finish in 12-20 months. Graduate-level degrees, such as MSNs and nursing doctorates, add 2-5 years.

Nursing informatics calls for a combination of clinical, technological, and collaborative abilities. Successful nursing informatics workers need interpersonal skills, such as conflict resolution, empathy, flexibility, and teamwork, along with problem-solving abilities, computer programming knowledge, and experience with health data systems.

According to HIMSS report respondents, 45% reported working remotely during some points in their workweeks. Many nurse informaticists must spend time at their worksites, but 21% of those surveyed report working remotely every day. Twenty-nine percent of respondents work offsite one day per week, and 19% work remotely two days a week.