Dive Brief:
- To facilitate work between clinical and IT departments, hospitals and medical centers are increasingly employing chief nursing informatics officers (CNIO), Healthcare IT News reported.
- According to a recent report by Witt/Kieffer, the number of CNIOs has grown by 10% since 2011.
- However, barriers such as IT resistance need to be overcome for the position to really gain traction.
Dive Insight:
The researchers canvassed 100 people at medical centers, standalone hospitals and hospitals that are part of larger healthcare systems to learn how the CNIO role has evolved over the past five years and whether facilities are recruiting for it. They found that some organizations have created new CNIO positions, while others have modified existing jobs to incorporate the title and role.
“CNIOs now have a ‘seat at the table,’” Chris Wierz, principal for Witt/Kieffer’s IT practice, told Healthcare IT News. “From a CNIO perspective, it’s so much about collaboration and consensus building, getting those groups of people together when it comes to IT.”
Wierz said CNIOs are responsible for a variety of issues, including implementation of EHRs, optimizing nursing strategy around IT and creating a roadmap for day-to-day clinical IT operations.
In addition to IT resistance, barriers to establishing a CNIO include lack of funding and size — smaller organizations sometimes felt they weren’t large enough to warrant a dedicated CNIO.