Health Care Informatics Leaders Bring Expertise to New STTI Book

Updated on February 5, 2015

Experts explain importance, provide guidance for future of burgeoning health care informatics industry

Since the 2009 passing of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, health care providers across America have begun to adopt electronic health records (EHRs), creating a rapidly growing need for health care informatics resources and expertise.

Mastering Informatics: A Healthcare Handbook for Success, a new book published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI), not only provides helpful guidance in understanding informatics, but also offers continuing nursing education (CNE) credit, making it both a helpful career resource and an imperative professional development tool for nurses specializing in informatics.

With increasing adoption of EHRs, the need for informatics resources has also increased. Many nursing and clinical informaticists transitioned into their positions from superuser roles during or after a system implementation.

“These informatics workers possess ‘on the job’ experience but lack the applied science that currently exists in the field of informatics,” said one of the book’s authors, Patricia P. Sengstack, DNP, RN-BC, CPHIMS. “Since informatics has evolved into a specialty that possesses a unique body of knowledge backed by science, the book will provide an essential guide to surviving in many of these new and emerging roles in health care informatics.”

Increasingly, nursing students find that they are required to pass an informatics class in order to graduate. As these new informaticists continue to develop the growing field, it is important to be sure that they have all the necessary tools.

In Mastering Informatics, experts Sengstack and Charles Boicey, MS, RN-BC, CPHIMS, present key informatics concepts to help readers increase knowledge and expertise. The authors begin with the phases of the system development lifecycle (SDLC): planning and analysis, design and usability, testing, training, implementation, maintenance, and evaluation. This overview provides informatics nurses, physicians, pharmacists, dentists, dietitians, and other clinical professionals with a solid foundation of knowledge, positioning them for success within any clinical system.

Mastering Informatics is the first health care informatics text to offer real-life experiences and strategies instead of relying solely on theories and models. The book demonstrates the importance of health care informatics in the present and future.

A companion CNE course (30.6 CNE contact hours) for Mastering Informatics is also available. The book and online course, Mastering Informatics Companion CNE, will prepare nurses for the American Nurses Credentialing Center board certification exam in nursing informatics.  Each book contains a one-time use coupon code allowing readers to purchase the course for US $50 (regularly priced US $250).

The book is available at www.nursingknowledge.org/sttibooks.

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