Example Career: Health Informatics Specialists

Career Description

Apply knowledge of nursing and informatics to assist in the design, development, and ongoing modification of computerized health care systems. May educate staff and assist in problem solving to promote the implementation of the health care system.

What Job Titles Health Informatics Specialists Might Have

• Clinical Informatics Analyst

What Health Informatics Specialists Do

• Translate nursing practice information between nurses and systems engineers, analysts, or designers, using object-oriented models or other techniques.
• Apply knowledge of computer science, information science, nursing, and informatics theory to nursing practice, education, administration, or research, in collaboration with other health informatics specialists.
• Analyze and interpret patient, nursing, or information systems data to improve nursing services.
• Develop, implement, or evaluate health information technology applications, tools, processes, or structures to assist nurses with data management.
• Identify, collect, record, or analyze data relevant to the nursing care of patients.
• Use informatics science to design or implement health information technology applications for resolution of clinical or health care administrative problems.
• Provide consultation to nurses regarding hardware or software configuration.
• Analyze computer and information technologies to determine applicability to nursing practice, education, administration, and research.
• Develop strategies, policies or procedures for introducing, evaluating, or modifying information technology applied to nursing practice, administration, education, or research.
• Develop or implement policies or practices to ensure the privacy, confidentiality, or security of patient information.
• Read current literature, talk with colleagues, and participate in professional organizations or conferences to keep abreast of developments in informatics.
• Develop or deliver training programs for health information technology, creating operating manuals as needed.
• Disseminate information about nursing informatics science and practice to the profession, other health care professions, nursing students, and the public.
• Design, conduct, or provide support to nursing informatics research.
• Inform local, state, national, and international health policies related to information management and communication, confidentiality and security, patient safety, infrastructure development, and economics.
• Plan, install, repair, or troubleshoot telehealth technology applications or systems in homes.

What Health Informatics Specialists Should Be Good At

• Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
• Written Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
• Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
• Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
• Fluency of Ideas - The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
• Information Ordering - The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
• Near Vision - The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
• Originality - The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
• Speech Clarity - The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
• Speech Recognition - The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
• Category Flexibility - The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
• Mathematical Reasoning - The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
• Flexibility of Closure - The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.

What Health Informatics Specialists Should Be Interested In

• Social - Social occupations frequently involve working with, communicating with, and teaching people. These occupations often involve helping or providing service to others.
• Investigative - Investigative occupations frequently involve working with ideas, and require an extensive amount of thinking. These occupations can involve searching for facts and figuring out problems mentally.

What Health Informatics Specialists Need to Learn

• Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• Computers and Electronics - Knowledge of circuit boards, processors, chips, electronic equipment, and computer hardware and software, including applications and programming.
• Education and Training - Knowledge of principles and methods for curriculum and training design, teaching and instruction for individuals and groups, and the measurement of training effects.
• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Medicine and Dentistry - Knowledge of the information and techniques needed to diagnose and treat human injuries, diseases, and deformities. This includes symptoms, treatment alternatives, drug properties and interactions, and preventive health-care measures.
• Administration and Management - Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
• Psychology - Knowledge of human behavior and performance; individual differences in ability, personality, and interests; learning and motivation; psychological research methods; and the assessment and treatment of behavioral and affective disorders.
• Mathematics - Knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, and their applications.
• Communications and Media - Knowledge of media production, communication, and dissemination techniques and methods. This includes alternative ways to inform and entertain via written, oral, and visual media.
• Therapy and Counseling - Knowledge of principles, methods, and procedures for diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of physical and mental dysfunctions, and for career counseling and guidance.
• Engineering and Technology - Knowledge of the practical application of engineering science and technology. This includes applying principles, techniques, procedures, and equipment to the design and production of various goods and services.
• Telecommunications - Knowledge of transmission, broadcasting, switching, control, and operation of telecommunications systems.