AAN recognizes six nurse informaticians with nursing fellowship

Six nurse informaticians, all leaders in the area of nursing known as nursing informatics, were inducted into the American Academy of Nursing (AAN) as Fellows, Saturday evening, Oct. 15, at the annual AAN Meeting and Conference. The new AAN Fellows are recognized for their individual accomplishments within the nursing profession and for their contributions to transforming health care through design of electronic health record systems that support nursing workflow, critical decision support and best practices. The new Fellows are all members of AMIA, the professional association for informatics professionals—a community of health professionals that focuses on computer-assisted, data-driven healthcare delivery.

The new AAN Fellows are:
•Dana Alexander, RN, MSN, MBA, Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer, GE Healthcare IT Solutions. Leverages professional nursing practice knowledge and health system operational experience to develop strategic planning initiatives and redesign healthcare processes.
•Gregory L. Alexander PhD, RN--Associate Professor, University of Missouri Sinclair School of Nursing. Research focus: gero-informatics and national standards initiatives, information technology innovations to assess, monitor, and improve the health of older adults.
•Thomas R. Clancy, PhD, RN--Clinical Professor and Assistant Dean, University of Minnesota School of Nursing. Specializes in the use of analytical and simulation models as tools to predict return on investment measures for new medical devices and information technology prior to their use in a healthcare setting.
•Karen A. Monsen, PhD, RN, Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota School of Nursing and Director of the Omaha System Partnership for Knowledge Discovery and Health Care Quality. Expertise is in public health nursing and nursing informatics; her research includes theory-based analysis, data mining, and longitudinal analysis.
•Judy Murphy, BSN, RN, FACMI, Vice President, Information Technology, Aurora Health Care, Wisconsin. Publishes and lectures nationally and internationally on system implementation methodologies, automated clinical documentation, and the use of technology to support evidence-based practice.
•Hyeoun-Ae Park, PhD, RN, College of Nursing, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea Involved in development of an enterprise EMR system and development of standard vocabulary for nursing records for the Bundang Seoul National University Hospital, a tertiary teaching hospital in Korea.

Within AMIA, the above-noted nurse informaticians are active in the Nursing Informatics Working Group (NIWG), which provides a forum in which nurses can collaborate to advance the science of healthcare informatics and application of the science to improve healthcare outcomes through practice, education, research and policy.

"Patient care is central to nursing informatics," says NIWG Chair Rosemary Kennedy, PhD, RN, FAAN, of Thomas Jefferson University, Jefferson School of Nursing, Philadelphia. "Nurse informaticians are expanding knowledge about information and communication technologies to improve outcomes across many venues of care—all in support of patient-centered, empowered care."

Just days following the AAN induction, NIWG will hold two special events at AMIA's Annual Symposium, Oct. 22-26, 2011, at the Washington Hilton Hotel. On Saturday, Oct. 22, NIWG holds an all-day Symposium on Human Factors, Modeling, and Workflow: Methods for Implementing Health Information Technology, co-led by Drs. Alexander, Clancy and Kennedy. The next morning, Oct. 23, NIWG holds an informational networking event to provide a forum for interactive discussions about NIWG-supported nursing informatics accomplishments and future initiatives.