NURSING INFORMATICS

Various definitions of Nursing Informatics have been proposed; perhaps the most widely currently accepted definition comes from the International Medical Informatics Association - Nursing Informatics Special Interest Group adopted August 1998, Seoul, Korea: Nursing informatics is the integration of nursing, its information, and information management with information processing and communication technology, to support the health of people world wide.

A more recent definition of Nursing Informatics comes from the American Nurses Association's Scope and Standards for Nursing Informatics Practice (2008): Nursing Informatics is a specialty that integrates nursing science, computer science, and information science to manage and communicate data, information, knowledge, and wisdom in nursing practice.

An early definition was proposed by Hannah (1985): The use of information technologies in relation to any of the functions that are within the purview of nursing and are carried out by nurses in the performance of their duties. This comprises the care of patients, administration, education and research. This definition focused on the interaction with technology that is now (2008) part of virtually every nurse's environment. The specialty of Nursing Informatics is concerned with understanding and improving the nurse's and patient's interaction with technology.

Other definitions also exist. For example, William Goossen, from The Netherlands, developed a more comprehensive definition:
Goossen WTF (1996). Nursing information management and processing: a framework and definition for systems analysis, design, and evaluation. International Journal of Biomedical Computing, 40, 187-195.

"Nursing informatics is the multidisciplinary scientific endeavor of analyzing, formalizing, and modeling how nurses collect and manage data, process data into information and knowledge, make knowledge-based decisions and inferences for patient care, and use this empirical and experiential knowledge in order to broaden the scope and enhance the quality of their professional practice. The scientific methods central to nursing informatics are focused on:Using a discourse about motives for computerized systems,Analyzing, formalizing and modeling nursing information processing and nursing knowledge for all components of nursing practice: clinical practice, management, education and research,Investigating determinants, conditions, elements, models and processes in order to design, and implement as well as test the effectiveness and efficiency of computerized information, (tele)communication and network systems for nursing practice, andStudying the effects of these systems on nursing practice."