My understanding of informatics: Nursing as a case study

Background: Nursing Informatics (NI) is an emerging concept, and there are challenges to understanding what it is and its practical application. This abstract explores the academic faculty's understanding of informatics at a selected nursing school in Australia. Methodology: A qualitative research approach guided this study, which was conducted at a selected metropolitan nursing school in Australia. Participants were academic faculty, purposively selected and interviewed through Zoom video conference application. Data were analysed using Qualitative Content Analysis. Findings: NI was viewed as a new concept, and its definition was very extensive. The understanding of NI was grouped into the following subcategories: (i) ‘Collection and use of data.’; (ii) ‘who is using what health services.’, (iii) ‘nursing practice with computer and IT.’, (iv) ‘use of technology within the learning and teaching space.’, (v) ‘it is about how to find evidence.’, and (vi) ‘it can be things like electronic health records.’, (vii) ‘it’s not every day that you hear the terms nursing informatics.” Conclusion: NI facilitates the nurses’ job across their practice spectrum. Digital health relies on the quality of data for information management, and nurses play a crucial role in capturing and using data in the clinical healthcare system. An adequate conceptualisation of informatics in nursing is a foundation for its successful integration both in nursing education and practice