According to the American Nurses Association (ANA, 2015), advanced degree Nursing Informatics (NI) standards include the critical thinking process practiced across the nursing profession spectrum and combines assessment, diagnosis, outcomes identification, planning, implementation, evaluation of progress towards goals, ethics, education, evidence-based practice, quality practice, communication, leadership, collaboration, professional self-evaluation, utilizing appropriate resources, and environmental health. These competencies demonstrate the informaticist’s ability to apply nursing wisdom with data and analytical skills by employing the Data- Information- Wisdom- Knowledge model (ANA, 2015). NI assists in ensuring that patient data is managed and delivered in a way that meets end-user needs, which often includes the interprofessional healthcare team and patients (ANA, 2015).
  

       The Institute of Medicine’s (IOM, 2010) Future of Nursing 2010 report states nurses are the largest profession utilizing technology in the medical domain and should be part of the design process to assist in the evolution of integrating technology and patient care. HIT has unquestioningly changed the way nurses interact with their patients while providing care and ensuring NI contributions are included in these changes will increase nurse satisfaction and improve patient outcomes. IOM’s report describes how making sure that nurses are empowered to utilize their training to maximum their scope and roles in any health-related field advances patient-centered care and increases evidence-based results.

       Farzandipour et al. (2021) describes competence as being well qualified and obtaining the knowledge, skills, and ability to perform specific tasks, activities, or professional objectives. Competency in these areas also include having the values, critical thinking skill sets, attitudes, and clinical decision-making (Farzandipour et al., 2021). As a result, NI competencies are defined as having adequate knowledge, skills, and the ability to perform specific specialized technological tasks in that field (Farzandipour et al., 2021).  A primary goal of nursing education should be set to promote the evaluation and empowerment of NI competency assessments. Without the standardization of informatics and competencies, information technology could endanger the healthcare setting by imposing risks on patient quality and safety standards.

       NI graduates experience barriers in obtaining informatics certificates due to implemented standards that a master’s degree in a health profession and in informatics must be obtained by a potential participant. Also, the informatics program must be recognized and credentialed by the Commission on Accreditation for Health Informatics and Information Management Education, which at the time of this study, no graduate-level nursing informatics programs had been identified as such (Monsen et al, 2019). A study performed by Monsen et al. (2019) determined if nursing informatics graduate-level accreditation and certification opportunities were correlated between American Medical Informatics Association’s (AMIA) Health Informatics Core Competencies and American Association of Colleges of Nursing-Graduate Level Nursing Informatics Competencies. Monsen et al.’s results found that NI programs are aligned with the guidelines set for health informatics and therefore should allow that NI advanced-degree graduates sit for certification. Also, it should be noted that per the AMIA site, membership includes nurses and students in advanced informatics degree programs (AMIA, 2022).

American Medical Informatics Association. (2022) About AMIA. https://amia.org/about-amia

American Nurses Association. (2015). Nursing informatics: Scopes & standards of practice (2nd ed.).

American Nursing Informatics Association. (2022). About us. https://www.ania.org/about-us

Farzandipour, M., Mohamadian, H., Akbari, H., Safari, S., & Sharif, R. (2021). Designing a national model for assessment of nursing informatics competency. BMC Medical Informatics & Decision Making, 21(1), 1–12. https://doi-org.ju.idm.oclc.org/10.1186/s12911-021-01405-0

Forman, T. M., Armor, D. A., & Miller, A. S. (2020). A review of clinical informatics competencies in nursing to inform best practices in education and nurse faculty development. Nursing Education Perspectives (Wolters Kluwer Health), 41(1), E3–E7. https://doiorg.ju.idm.oclc.org/10.1097/01.NEP.0000000000000588

Institute of Medicine. (2011). The future of nursing: Leading change, advancing health. National Academies Press. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK209871/

Khezri, H., & Abdekhoda, M. (2019). Assessing nurses' informatics competency and identifying its related factors. Journal of Research in Nursing: JRN, 24(7), 529–538.        https://doi.org/10.1177/1744987119839453

Kleib, M., Chauvette, A., Furlong, K. E., Nagle, L. M., Slater, L., & McCloskey, R. (2019). Approaches for defining and assessing nursing informatics competencies: A scoping     review protocol. JBI Database of Systematic Reviews & Implementation Reports, 17(6), 1071–1078. https://doi-org.ju.idm.oclc.org/10.11124/JBISRIR-2017-003889

Kleib, M., Simpson, N., Rhodes, B. (2016). Information and Communication Technology: Design, delivery, and outcomes from a Nursing Informatics Boot Camp. OJIN: The Online
Journal of Issues in Nursing, 21(2).            https://doi.org/10.3912/OJIN.Vol21No02Man05

Monsen, K. A., Bush, R. A., Jones, J., Manos, E. L., Skiba, D. J., & Johnson, S. B. (2019). Alignment of American
Association of Colleges of Nursing graduate-level nursing      informatics competencies with American Medical Informatics Association Health Informatics core competencies. CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing, 37(8), 396–404. https://doi-org.ju.idm.oclc.org/10.1097/CIN.0000000000000537

Nursing Informatics. (2020, November 12). Nursing Informatics Overview [Video]. YouTube.            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub1ScYHH3GE&t=276s

Sewell, J. (2019). Informatics and nursing: Opportunities and challenges (6th ed.). Wolters Kluwer.

            Standardization of informatics education is necessary to ensure comprehensive and consistent competency development. Schools do not provide the same education or method of provision. The need for this competency is supported but how it is to be completed is not quite clear. There are new innovative ways to provide education and competency in the field of informatics. They include but are not limited to the potential use of new tools such as E simulation and technology that utilizes the virtual realm in the form of Google glass (Forman et al., 2020). 

            Nurses make up the greatest portion of workers in the medical field and are considered the leading end-users of patient data platforms. NI competencies are important in order to improve patient safety in computerized environments and systems of clinical information (Farzandipour et al., 2021). Nursing professionals should utilize and advocate utilization of HIT to encourage NI skills within their organizations. Standardizing the informatics competencies can be helpful for educational program administrators and organizational leaders to train nurses including a specialized NI course in the training programs (Farzandipour et al., 2021). Standardization evaluation tools should also measure the NI proficiency level of working nurses and nursing students in the local programs and in their communities (Farzandipour et al., 2021). 

       In order to build a solid nursing foundation, leaders must provide a core learning platform that enables the new nurses to confront challenges in the various professional fields with the benefit of having available and acquired technical skills. In today’s healthcare system, nurses should be able to use data, information, knowledge, and technologies properly in order to improve nursing care. NI has a significant role in the areas of education, healthcare services, research, management, the storage of clinical care and the extension of research studies that are directly related to delivering quality and safe patient care (Farzandipour et al., 2021). In the review by Kleib et al. (2019), they included quantitative and qualitative studies to assess nurse informatics competencies, and to provide focus on gaps in knowledge and guide future studies. Kleib et al. explains that although there is not a global definition for NI, there is an international scholarly recognition for NI to encompass expertise, judgment, and perspective to utilize HIT effectively.