Nursing Informatics

Overview

The UMSON nursing informatics graduate specialty prepares nursing professionals to enhance the quality of patient care and outcomes through the development, implementation, and evaluation of information tools. Increasing pressures for the adoption and use of electronic information systems are creating a growing demand for nursing informatics in health care organizations and in businesses that develop and sell health care information technology. Graduates of this specialty are able to analyze nursing information requirements, design system alternatives, manage information technology, identify and implement user-training strategies, and evaluate the effectiveness of clinical and/or management information systems in patient care. Graduates of the specialty are leaders in the conceptualization, design, and research of computer-based information systems in health care organizations and in the informatics industry.

UMSON offers the post-BSN route for obtaining a master’s degree with the nursing informatics specialty. Doctoral degrees (DNP and PhD) and a post-master’s (non-degree) option are also offered. Full-time and part-time matriculation plans are available. This specialty is available online.

Online Program Overview

• Nursing informatics courses are offered only online. Core courses and electives may also be taken online, although some face-to-face options are available.
• Our faculty members are fully committed to distance learning. You receive individual attention from your advisor and communicate with them via telephone or e-mail.
• For the required practicum, the student and advisor arrange a mutually agreeable site in the student's local area.
• We understand that online learning is not for everyone. If you want to explore your potential for distance learning and examine our resources for this method of learning, visit the online learning page »

We invite our students to participate in the Summer Institute in Nursing Informatics Conference.

Faculty

Specialty Director

Eun-Shim Nahm, PhD, RN, FAAN, Associate Professor

Eun-Shim Nahm, PhD, RN, FAAN, associate professor and program director for the Nursing Informatics master’s specialty, conducts research in geroinformatics by developing and evaluating technology-based interventions for managing the health of aging adults and their caregivers. She has conducted various studies in this field, including qualitative, measurement, theory testing, and usability studies, as well as developing and implementing online interventions using various Web components. Dr. Nahm is the recipient of multiple grant awards from the National Institutes of Health. She is currently principal investigator for an R01 study, “Dissemination of a Theory-Based Bone Health Program in Online Communities” (08/2009–05/2013), funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research. She has published more than 30 peer reviewed journal articles and four book chapters in the field of nursing informatics. Dr. Nahm has mentored multiple doctoral students and teaches graduate-level nursing informatics courses.

Faculty

Arpad Kelemen, PhD, Associate Professor

Arpad Kelemen, PhD, associate professor, is developing models, algorithms, and intelligent systems for mining large-scale biomedical data, including health care, genomic, and medical image data. He recently published two books, Computational Intelligence in Medical Informatics and Computational Intelligence in Bioinformatics. Dr. Kelemen is currently editor of three international journals in the areas of computational intelligence and biomedical informatics. He has developed a large-scale intelligence software agent (IDA) for human-like decision making for the job assignment and job satisfaction problem. He has received funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institute of Health (NIH), and New York State Foundation for Science, Technology, and Innovation (NYSTAR). He was a co-principal investigator on an NSF grant, “Advanced Bayesian Approaches for Heterogeneous Temporal Genomic Data.” He is currently the principal investigator on a Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Advanced Education Nursing Grant, “Nursing Informatics Program Focused on Diversity and the Underserved."

Mary Regan, PhD, RN, Assistant Professor

Mary Regan, PhD, RN, assistant professor, has a federally funded program of research rooted in human factors, more specifically the effect that health care technologies have on nursing practice. Her current area of interest is the influence of nursing care on the utilization of cesarean sections. She has also conducted several studies about simulation and its effect on clinical reasoning in undergraduate nursing education. Dr. Regan pioneered the use of projective research methods in nursing education and is currently the principal investigator on a grant funded by the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development. She has published more than 10 peer reviewed journal articles and one book chapter in the field of clinical reasoning and human factors.

Charlotte Seckman, PhD, RN-BC, Assistant Professor

Charlotte Seckman, PhD, RN-BC, assistant professor, is a board certified informatics nurse with a research background focused on translating evidence into health care practices, exploring design efficiencies in computerized provider order entry, evaluating the usability of the electronic medical record to include system implementation, training and user satisfaction, and developing community and cognitive engagement techniques related to Web-based learning modalities. She is currently working in conjunction with NIH and the National Library of Medicine to develop, refine, and evaluate an evidence- based practice system called EBP InfoBot. This system is designed for automatic searching and delivery of patient-specific information from evidence-based resources that directly integrates with an electronic medical record.

Nancy Staggers, PhD, RN, FAAN, Professor

Nancy Staggers, PhD, RN, FAAN, professor, has an extensive background in clinical informatics from determining user requirements to application prototyping, system selection, large systems implementation, and enterprise system evaluation. She has held several executive positions, including associate CIO, Information Technology Services, for the Health Sciences Center at the University of Utah; program director for ECIS, Catholic Healthcare West; and director for corporate informatics at the U.S. Department of Defense. Her area of research is human-computer interaction and interface design in health care applications. She has completed a number of studies related to the optimal design of applications for nurses. Her most recent work was on designs for an electronic medication administration record (eMAR) in electronic health records. Her most recently funded research examines the cognitive support for medical-surgical nurses’ change of shift report.

Marisa Wilson, DNSc, MHSc, RN, Assistant Professor

Marisa Wilson, DNSc, MHSc, RN-BC, assistant professor, is a board certified nursing informatician with an interest in understanding how we can maximize the impact that design and implementation of health care technology has on the operations, efficiencies, and outcomes at the point of care. Dr. Wilson has developed computational terminology for perianesthesia nursing, analyzed integration of disparate systems, and proposed new leadership models. She has more than 20 years experience in designing and implementing systems in the public health and acute care environments. Dr. Wilson is funded to study the impact of a point of care medication dispensing device on nursing, patient safety, and staff satisfaction. She serves as a technology and implementation expert in multiple electronic health record initiatives. She is a juror for the Commission on Certification of Health Information Technology and facilitates preparation courses for those interested in becoming board certified.

Master's Degree

Program Path and Eligibility

People with a BSN may apply for entry directly into the MS program. The curriculum includes nursing core courses, management courses, electives, and informatics courses. The program may be completed entirely online, but some courses are also available face-to-face.

People with a BSN and a master’s degree in a different field may apply for entry into the MS program. The curriculum of the MS program provides the master’s-level nursing courses needed for the leadership role of the informatics nurse specialist; these nursing core courses are not part of the post-MS curriculum.

Course Scheduling and Sequencing

Nursing Core Courses and Electives

The nursing core courses and electives may be taken in any sequence:

Leadership Courses

The leadership courses may be taken in any sequence.

Informatics Courses

In general, the informatics courses must be taken in the sequence shown. However, 784 and 786 may be taken concurrently, and 785 may precede or follow those two courses:

Sample Plans of Study

• MS: Full-Time Study Sample Plan
• MS: Part-time Study Sample Plan

Tuition: Academic Common Market

The nursing informatics MS specialty participates in the Academic Common Market, meaning that students who reside in member states of the Southern Regional Education Board may request to pay in-state tuition if there is no nursing informatics program offered in a public university in their home state.

Certificate Program

The Nursing Informatics (NI) Certificate program enables nurses with a master’s degree in another specialty area or field to gain specific knowledge and skills in nursing and health care informatics in an effort to support evidence-based practice and improve health care outcomes. For more detailed information, please visit the NI Certificate Web page.

Doctoral Degrees: DNP & PhD

The PhD program offers research opportunities in the health care/nursing informatics area. The informatics program maintains a cadre of nationally renowned informatics researchers and experts who can guide doctoral students whose emphasis area is in informatics. In particular, the school maintains excellent collaborative relationships with federal hospital centers, government agencies, and vendors that can also facilitate our students’ research and learning.

For further information about the doctoral degrees, please visit the doctoral program section of the website.

Other Resources

• For Admission Requirements, Visit the MS Degree Program Page
• Packet for Prospective Informatics Students (PDF)
• Packet for New Informatics Students admitted prior to spring 2014 (PDF)
• Packet for New Informatics Students admitted in and after spring 2014 (PDF)
• Careers in Nursing Informatics: The Future is Now!
• Student Testimonials
• Scholarly Papers » (NI Students only)
• Summer Institute in Nursing Informatics Conference Website