Promoting the New Role of Nursing Informatics Professional in Thailand

Abstract

Nurse is one of the health sectors that had highly demands for transforming the paper-base system to the electronic-base system. The request for nursing informatics was significantly increased because nurses had to directly confront with technology during their services. Generally nurses are always the key role of informaticians, and add significant values which related to clinical transformation. The nursing Informatics specialty was recognized since the American Nurses Association (ANA) promoted the nurses who worked by combining the science of nursing with computer and information science to support the clinical workflow, and add the value to the organization. However, only few countries officially promoted and applied the nursing informatics. Although, in Thailand the information systems were also applied to healthcare service, especially on medical services, it was found that the nursing informaticians did not get promoted at all. Some even lacked in directions while some in positions, and thus obviously had no career path. Therefore, this study aimed to review the literatures and demonstrate the concept to promote the nursing informatics professionals in Thailand as a new nurse's role in perspective of nursing informatics definition, nursing informatics role, and career structure of nursing informatics.