NR 541 Week 2 Discussion NI Functional Areas, Competencies, and Supporting Sciences

Answer: How do the functional areas outlined by the American Nurses Association compare and contrast with your initial thoughts of what nursing informatics practice entailed? Ever since I was young, my main focus was to learn about the human body system. I was never interested about technology and how to formulate programs. However, while working as a registered nurse, I realized charting patient data was the second priority for nurses to do besides their first priority which was providing quality care to their patients. It was so interesting to see how much time nurses spent on the EHR system to make sure we documented everything for every patient. Therefore, I gained interested in the informatics world and want to be able to help nurses chart only needed information that way their focus can be mainly on their patients. That being said, my initial thoughts of what nursing informatics practice entailed was only dealing with the EHR system, technology, and computers, and how to improve it for the nursing staff. Now reviewing the functional areas outlined by the American Nurses Association, I realized INS can do so much more within the field in which makes it even more interesting. Though I gained my interest in the informatics department, I was worried I wouldn’t understand the technology skills since I was so used to the patient care. However, looking at the additional functional areas within the informatics is giving me more confidence in which I have a lot of opportunities to find something I am good at. After reviewing the functional areas, I look forward to practicing coordination, facilitation, and integration and/or in consultation as I believe those areas best match my aspirations as a INS. When I was in college, I became very interested in being part of groups/organizations within the campus life as it helped me become a leader. I realized I really enjoyed being part of meetings, coming up with ideas together on how to improve things, and developing new projects that can make a difference. I had always wanted to be a leader who could help the team reach goals, but as a bedside nurse I did not have a lot of opportunities to propose ideas especially as a new graduate. Therefore, the description of the functional areas I chose, both areas highlight key roles in which I believe I am good at and would love to improve in.