Nursing Informatics Pros Seeing Growing Salaries, Opportunities

Here’s something I missed in the explosion of news around HIMSS17. According to a recent study released late last month by the organization, nurse informaticists are largely well-paid and satisfied with their jobs.

According to the American Nurses Association, nurse informaticists have broad responsibilities, including integrating data and supporting provider and patient decision-making. The job description continues evolve with health IT trends, and may vary from one institution to the other,but their work usually involves a mix of nursing science, health records management and information technology solutions.

As the job description has solidified, nursing informatics has begun to become a well-liked specialty. Eighty percent of respondents to the HIMSS study, the 2017 Nursing Informatics Workforce Survey, reported being satisfied or highly satisfied with their careers, HIMSS found. This may be in part due to their pay, with almost half respondents telling researchers that they had a base salary of over $100,000. Not only that, 34 percent said they also got a bonus.

Meanwhile, highly-trained nursing informaticists did better still. Those who had gotten a nursing informatics certification or post-graduate degree took home higher salaries than those who hadn’t. With over half of those who had additional education made more than $100,000 a year, as opposed to 37 percent of those who didn’t, the trade group said.

In addition, nurse informaticists are advancing themselves to a striking degree, with over half of respondents having a post-graduate degree, often in informatics or nursing informatics, HIMSS reported. (Of this group, 57 percent had completed post-graduate degrees, and 29 percent had a master’s degree or PhD in informatics.)

Meanwhile, 41 percent of nurses are involved in a formal informatics program, and almost half had a certification. These efforts seem be paying off, with two-fifths of respondents reporting that they moved into a new position with more responsibility after they got certified.

As nurse informaticists grow, they are accumulating deeper levels of experience.  All told, 31 percent of respondents had more than 10 years of informatics experience, 36 percent had five to 10 years of experience – dwarfing the 24 percent that had just one to four years. One-third of respondents said they’d been in their current position for more than five years, and a majority of respondents reported having seven years plus of related experience.

While these nurses seem like they enjoy their careers, they are still facing some bureaucracy-related problems.  For example, when asked about their concerns, they rated a lack of administrative and staffing resources as the top barrier to their success.

Ongoing shifts in their reporting roles may also be leading to some dissatisfaction. While most respondents told HIMSS that they reported to the information systems or tech department of their organization, a growing number report to administrative or corporate headquarters. (On the other hand, one-third said that their organization has a senior nursing informatics executive or CNIO, which one would hope proves to offer extra support.)

Though the HIMSS summary doesn’t say so explicitly, it seems very likely that demand for nurse informaticists is outstripping supply, given the substantial salaries these experts can command. If your organization needs to recruit such a person, be prepared for some tough competition.

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

   

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