How do you become a nurse informaticist? What attracted you to nursing informatics while you were working with solid organ transplants? What can you learn on the job? What recommendations would you offer to nurses who want to learn more about informatics or healthcare professionals who want to go to nursing school?

Join Robert Kirchner, RN, MSN, MBA, Informatics Nurse Specialist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. He has been employed at the Mayo Clinic for 17 years and in his current position since 2007. As part of the Nursing Informatics Division, he focuses on medication, management and the implementation of technology into nursing practice. He has over 28 years of clinical nursing experience and has worked in the ICU, general care, inpatient and outpatient areas, with his clinical practice emphasis   in solid organ transplant. Kirchner has been an active member of HIMSS since 2008; he is a member of the Nursing Informatics Committee and past reviewer for the HIMSS Annual Conference and Midwest conferences. He has served on the Minnesota State chapter board as a regional coordinator and he was the Chair for the Nursing Informatics Awareness Workgroup.

Kirchner is a member of the HIMSS Nursing Informatics Committee, which was founded in 2003 in response to the increased recognition of the role of the informatics nurse professional in healthcare information and management systems.

He is also a HIMSS Nurse Informatics e-Mentor.

How do you become a nurse informaticist? How did you transition from nursing to management, then from management to focusing on IT? Are there guidelines to follow in a nursing clinical career to transition to both informatics and to a leadership position? Meaning, how do you find the path to follow in terms of the number and types of jobs?

Join, Elizabeth M. Wertz Evans, PhD, RN, MPM, CPHQ, CPHIMS, FHIMSS, FACMPE, Executive Director and Publisher, Professional Practice and Programs, Oncology Nursing Society. Liz brings an extensive healthcare background, a notable education, and diverse professional experience in clinical and operational aspects of healthcare to her work in both hospitals and physician practices.

Evans is a member of the HIMSS Nursing Informatics Committee, which was founded in 2003 in response to the increased recognition of the role of the informatics nurse professional in healthcare information and management systems.

She is also a HIMSS Nurse Informatics e-Mentor.

Join Colleen Russell MSN, RN-BC, a regional clinical informaticist in operations and special services for a large healthcare system, as she shares her insights on a career in nursing informatics. With 21 years of vast experience in healthcare, she has expertise in critical care; information systems/technology; and business analysis of hospitals. This includes more than eight years of experience with multiple clinical and business systems and seven years of cardiac critical care and electrophysiology experience. Ms. Russell is also a member of the HIMSS Nursing Informatics Committee.

Hear from HIMSS eNurse Mentor, Charles Boicey, RN., Informatics Solutions Architect, UC Irvine Medical Center in Orange County, California. Charles is also co-founder and chief innovation officer of Social Health Insights LLC, a start-up focused on developing healthcare analytics, social media analytics and social technologies to solve today’s toughest healthcare problems. Charles is a member of the HIMSS Nursing Informatics Committee, and Chair, Clinical Informatics, for the HIMSS Southern California Chapter. He is also Vice President for the American Nursing Informatics Association.

Hear from HIMSS eMentor, Dana Alexander, RN, MSN, MBA, FHIMSS, FAAN. She is a HIMSS Board member and Vice President Integrated Care Delivery & Chief Nursing Officer, Caradigm. Joyce Lofstrom, MS, APR, HIMSS Director, Corporate Communications, talks with Dana during this program.

Willa Fields,DNSc, RN, FHIMSS, current HIMSS Board Chair and professor in the School of Nursing at San Diego State University in San Diego, Calif., shares her insights on trends in nursing informatics and her reasons for earning a doctorate in nursing science. Joyce Lofstrom, MS, APR, Director, Corporate Communications, HIMSS, hosts the podcast.

Joyce Sensmeier, RN-BC, MS, CPHIMS, FHIMSS, FAAN, Vice President, Informatics, for HIMSS, talks about her nursing career, serving as a mentor and the skills required to move forward in the nursing informatics profession. Joyce Lofstrom, MS, APR, Director, Corporate Communications, HIMSS, hosts this podcast.