Nurses spend long hours on the front lines in hospitals, doctor’s offices, and nursing homes, completing many tasks with potentially life-altering outcomes. Their expertise, leadership, and skills are precious. An MSN in Informatics can equip nurses to use their expertise to improve patient care and outcomes.
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Better Job Opportunities
Whether in the clinical realm or the business side of healthcare, nurses with an MSN Informatics are positioned for various leadership positions. Nursing informatics professionals use data to fuel transformation within a hospital, healthcare organization, or healthcare industry. Their work is truly meaningful as they help boost the accuracy of healthcare information, speed up decision-making, and improve patient outcomes. The job satisfaction levels for nurses who choose a career in nursing informatics are also extremely high.
Higher Salary
As the healthcare industry embraces technology, nursing informatics professionals are at the forefront of developing, implementing, and evaluating new information systems and software. According to the 2020 Nursing Informatics Workforce Survey by HIMSS, nurse informaticists earn higher salaries than nurses without an MSN or RN-to-BSN degree.
These professionals develop and implement data management systems in medical organizations to improve patient care. They collaborate with other members of the clinical leadership team to establish and execute IT strategies. They also oversee technological training for nurses and other personnel.
Many graduate programs allow students to gain hands-on experience working as a nurse informatics super-user or with the IT department. Certified nurses in their specialty can further increase their earning potential and advance quickly in their careers.
Better Work-Life Balance
Whether on the job hunt or already in a career, nursing informatics is a career ladder that can help you climb into leadership positions. In this role, you can have a profound impact on patient outcomes. Your inputs — data-driven decisions, careful shift planning, ensuring data security — affect the quality of care nurses and their patients provide.
Health IT advancements create significant new challenges for professionals in this field. You need to know where and how technology should touch patient care while analyzing data and applying research-backed principles to improve workflows and boost efficiency. Nursing informatics specialists help colleagues navigate these challenges and deliver the best possible healthcare.
More Flexibility
Most MSN programs for nurses in nursing informatics are not designed to meet APRN state licensure requirements. However, they offer more flexibility in a student’s career and life than programs requiring an RN license to complete the program.
Nurses who graduate with an MSN in nursing informatics can find jobs at hospitals, health record businesses, public health organizations, and other healthcare organizations. Some nurses may even find themselves working remotely.
The qualifications that an RN needs to be considered for an MSN in nursing informatics include having a BSN and being licensed as a registered nurse. Some schools also prefer or require students to have at least one year of full-time clinical experience. The specialized knowledge that an MSN in nursing informatics provides helps nurses better understand how current technologies can solve complex healthcare problems, like ensuring patients have access to quality healthcare and lowering medical costs for underserved populations.