I hope you’re all doing well and I hope that this is the right platform to ask questions around ‘How to Get Started’. As a full-time registered nurse with experience in PACU/Recovery and Infection Prevention Control, I am looking to broaden my professional development by integrating my passion for technology with nursing.
I am particularly interested in pursuing a career in nurse informatics, but I have found limited information on this career pathway in New Zealand. I would greatly appreciate any guidance or advice on how to get started in this field.
With my experience as an RN-Clinical SuperUser and my contributions to improving IT systems, including being the “IT & Microsoft 365 champion,” I believe I have a strong foundation. I have also provided feedback and contributed to the development of eMeds and our hospital’s digital system, ‘Clinical Workstation.’
I am based in Queenstown. If anyone is aware of latest courses, certifications, or training programs available in New Zealand for nurse informatics, I would love to hear about them. Additionally, if there are any funding opportunities or scholarships for individuals interested in this career path, I would be grateful for any information.
Thank you for your time and support. I look forward to hearing from you and exploring the possibilities in nurse informatics.
Hi Hazel
There is no formal pathway at this stage. Most nurses who are working in this field applied for an advertised position or ‘fell’ into the work.
I would start by spending some time exploring this forum. Occasionally jobs are posted, but there is also great information regarding educational opportunities. I would also highly recommend attending Digital Health week in November - a fantastic opportunity to learn and to meet people. That is essentially how I got started in this journey - buy attending any HiNZ event I could!
I look forward to meeting you
Emma
You can also hook up with me. I work at the University of Auckland and am researching career pathways for health information/digital health specialists.
Re accreditation: Check out the CHIA website in Australia for a short course.
Re courses you can do: There is a PG Dip in digital health at Otago University and one at Auckland Uni (that I teach in). Both are entirely online. The programme that I teach in has 8 courses but if you want to do something shorter, there is a PG certificate of four courses.
If you’ve already got a PG Dip, you can enrol in a masters with me and do two courses and some research on a topic that floats your boat.
Becky’s idea of talking to other nurses who have become digital health specialists is a good idea. There are lots of us nurses in CiLN, so ask around. You’ll get very different answers from different people but we’ll give you good ideas.
Thanks for your advice! I will definitely keep an eye out for this forum and will convince my educator to help me get into Digital Health week event for this year
In addition to these great suggestions, I would also suggest you have a browse through some of the career websites for clinical informatics-type jobs that appeal to you and note the skills, experience and qualifications required in the position descriptions for those jobs, then work on matching up where you’re at with what you need.
Quality improvement work in clinical informatics tends to be a great route to building those skills and experience, and it sounds like you’re well on your way there finding opportunities to link up work with your local innovation or improvement advisors/ facilitators (often part of quality and/or patient safety teams, if you aren’t already in touch with them) is a great route to spreading your work and up-skilling too.
Finally, I’m rather biased on this front, but we have some great quality improvement training at Te Tāhū Hauora, some of which is free, and there are many tools and methods you can apply to clinical informatics work within this kete. You can check out some of our stuff here
Happy to have a convo about all this if you’d like too
Kia Ora Hazel
I am a nurse travelling this path…
I am now working in a role as a digital business analyst for Plunket, working on developments and improvements within our digital systems. I’m happy to share some of my experiences and steps that helped me to get into this role - not sure if it would add value, or be quite what you’re wanting, but feel free to get in touch if you’d like to connect
Sorry for the late reply. As noted there isn’t much specifically on nurse informatics but there are plenty of courses and education opportunities that can broaden your knowledge and skills whilst you work on finding a role. Consider courses or papers that add this but are not specifically nursing. Things like Digital transformation (paper at University of Canterbury), Design thinking (Vic Uni), courses on Data analysis (if this is your bag), cybersecurity in health, data sovereignty, governance and leadership, quality, innovation in digital health and there are plenty more. Coming to Digital Health Week this year is also a great opportunity to learn more about what is happening in New Zealand and beyond and to connect with like-minded people. There a Health Law course that I also found really helpful (I think its run from Vic Uni).
As for jobs, there’s a big shake up nationally as I am sure you are aware and once the dust settles a bit there may be opportunities falling out of this in Te Whatu Ora, so keep an eye out. However, there are also likely to be opportunities outside Te Whatu Ora, which is where more healthcare is delivered. Clinical Informatics is in its toddler stage here in New Zealand but that’s an opportunity and where we hope to see growth. As I said with education, do consider roles where you can add skills and experience to your portfolio for future roles. Consider private healthcare too.
I would be happy to ghat further if you like, just let me know.
Good luck and look forward to seeing you in this space in future.
Thanks for this useful guidance Karen. Nursing informatics has been around in NZ since the 1990s when the organisation called Nursing Informatics NZ existed. We have some amazing heroes of nursing informatics, e.g., Robyn Carr, Lucy Westbrook, Michelle Honey and others.
Doctors have been involved in clinical informatics for a long time too, e.g., the docs who created some of the general practice software products, and others who have been involved at various levels for a long time.
Take a look at the current Fellows of HiNZ and you’ll see we have a long track record.
Thanks @KarenDay , apologies and hoping not to have caused offence. I wasn’t as clear as I should have been. I was talking more about named roles and visible national identity. Having spoken to you and many colleagues I appreciate that Nursing and Clinical Informatics has been around for a long time (certainly longer that I have been in this space), but it, to me, doesn’t have a national identity which is what we hope the attention of a new CCIO will bring. Alongside that I hope that there are more opportunities created for more clinicians of every type to enter into this emerging profession. Looking forward to seeing what the new CCIO can do but also what emerges from other sectors where nursing and other healthcare professionals do incredible work.
Hi @HazelAlviola just a note that HiNZ has scholarships available for nurses to attend the Nursing Informatics workshop at Digital Health Week, you can apply here
No offense taken @karenshaw. I responded too quickly and should have reflected longer. An hour later I was thinking I should have ended with ‘Let’s build on the work of those who have gone before us’.
I agree that the profession of digital health specialist is emerging and that clinicians are still finding their way in a workplace that is increasingly digitised. Expanding a clinical role to include digital health specialist work is new and needs a lot of work (and visibility!) to make it happen.
finding opportunities to link up work with your local innovation or improvement advisors/ facilitators (often part of quality and/or patient safety teams, if you aren’t already in touch with them) is a great route to spreading your work and up-skilling too.