With step four, five and six of this eleven-step process, I continued my search and exploration to gather relevant information, began to eliminate choices that required too much education, were not practical for my current situation, or did not spark some form of personal interest and desire. By the sixth stage, evaluating the evidence, I had narrowed down my choice to a few alternatives and began to rate them on various criteria, such as degree of personal interest, educational parameters (length of study, cost, degree offerings, etc.). By this time, I also realized that I wanted to go into a newer area for several reasons. First, every new area has a greater need and more positions and opportunities available. Second, I always have liked challenges and experiencing something new. Third, I wanted to find an area that would interest me for the long-term and would be changing enough that I could change along with it. I was ready for step seven: making an educated guess or, as in the scientific approach, a hypothesis. I hypothesized that nursing informatics would meet the criteria listed in the previous step. According to the American Nursing Informatics Association, this field combines computer science, information science and nursing science to provide support in the management and processing of nursing data, information and knowledge in order to maximize the efficiency of nursing care delivery. It appeared that in this area of nursing, I could use my past experience to its best advantage, incorporate my interest in computers and technology and continue to help others, both professionals...
The need for nurses with it experience is definitely growing as is the area of informatics, which would keep me challenged and interested for many years.
Moving to step eight in my scientific study, I learned more about the educational opportunities in this area, talked with those who were teaching the courses as well as those who did the hiring and actually were doing the nursing informatics work. The best comment from one of these nurses: "There's never a typical day." On any particular day, this nurse could be briefing the executive team, mentoring a nurse on a disease management database, data mining the patient database, analyzing cost-effective technologies, developing an educational program, and even being involved with triage. I was ready for stage nine: Reaching my conclusion. My hypothesis was correct. I then suspended judgment, keeping an open mind about any contrary arguments or choices, and finally took action. By going through this step-by-step process, I felt very confident in the decision I made from both a professional and personal standpoint. I definitely look forward to moving forward on this decision.
