A few weeks ago, I was speaking to someone about health IT and nursing informatics as a career pathway following direct nursing care. 

The transition from direct nursing care to an IT role in healthcare informatics can be significant. The obvious change is stepping away from providing patient care in the sense that we tend to think of it. 

Instead of being assigned the care of one to many patients (the number varying depending on your clinical area), nurses transitioning into a health IT role will be working as part of a team on digital health projects and IT optimization. 

Such efforts require significant collaborative time working with clinical users, leaders, and translating decisions made during such design meetings into health IT build changes for future implementation. When not in meetings, your activities will require independent work on your laptop to configure and document the design decisions and manage communications. 

The person I was speaking to was...