1, 2, 3, 4… How Many Nurse Informaticists Are There?

A distinct standard occupation code for “informatics nurse” and related job descriptions and titles have yet to be recognized by the Department of Labor. There are varying factors to the roles and responsibilities of an informatics nurse; as well as different levels of job training, certification, education and ranges in salary. As characteristics of the discipline continue to evolve, the number of persons employed in the profession continues to grow as well.  HRSA has estimated from the 2008 National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses that they are 8,100 informatics nurses now in the U.S.

The HIMSS Nursing Informatics Community, in collaboration with HIMSS Analytics, started exploring the profession in 2004. Our aim is to provide the industry with current professional status and practice trends of this growing profession.

The 2004 Nursing Informatics Workforce Survey research captured several job characteristics and found that informatics nurses played a critical role in the implementation of clinical information and documentation systems.  The data from the 2007 Workforce Survey validates these results and suggests that while informatics nurses continue to play an important role in the installation of nursing applications, they are also playing an increasingly important role in the installation of all clinical applications. 

We are now in the process of data collection for our 2010 survey and are seeking your help. 

• Please consider taking the survey or forwarding the survey to your nursing colleagues.
• The survey will close January 19, 2011; preliminary results will be released at HIMSS11 and subsequent analysis will be on the HIMSS Nursing Informatics website. 

On behalf of the subject matter experts, who over the years have developed our survey, (and a thank you to HIMSS Analytics for their resources, guidance and leadership) – thank you in advance for participating!