[{"innerBlocks":[],"name":"core\/freeform","postId":4840,"blockType":{"name":"core\/freeform","keywords":[],"attributes":{"content":{"type":"string","source":"raw"},"lock":{"type":"object"}},"providesContext":[],"usesContext":[],"selectors":[],"supports":{"className":false,"customClassName":false,"reusable":false},"styles":[],"variations":[],"apiVersion":3,"title":"Classic","description":"Use the classic WordPress editor.","category":"text"},"originalContent":"How can chief nursing informatics officers advance their organization\u2019s IT mission with nurses? Make sure they have a strong connection with the chief nursing officer, give nurses a seat at the IT planning table, volunteer for projects that aren\u2019t necessarily in the CNIO job description, and generally stay visible, says award-winning CNIO Mary Beth Mitchell, RN, of Texas Health Resources.

\u201cYou have to advocate for your customers,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen I was a nurse, my patients were my customers, and now, the nurses are my customers. It doesn\u2019t mean they get everything they want, but it does mean I\u2019m out there listening to my users and responding to them. You can\u2019t just sit in an office and do this job.\u201d

Mitchell\u2019s most recent honor is the HIMSS 2015 Nursing Informatics Leadership Award, to be presented at March 3 at this year\u2019s HIMSS Conference and Exhibition in Las Vegas. She oversees nursing adoption, utilization and optimization of the organization\u2019s Epic EHR, as well as other information technologies used by the nursing staff.

Mitchell is THR\u2019s first CNIO and has defined the role in a way that sets the bar high. During her tenure, THR has been recognized as an EMRAM Stage 7 organization by HIMSS Analytics, and has won HIMSS\u2019s Davies Award for using health information technology to substantially improve patient outcomes while achieving return on investment.

All that success has come directly from good communication. Mitchell assumed the CNIO role in 2010 after working almost 15 years in other roles at THR, along with a two-year stint at Tenet Healthcare. She spent her first two months on the job just talking to nurses and finding out their IT-related pain points.

When she heard consistent complaints about the form used for taking admission histories, she convened a group of nurses, one from each of THR\u2019s hospitals, to meet with the IT staff once a week for six weeks at THR\u2019s corporate offices to redesign the form and its related workflow.

\u201cAt the end of the six weeks, the nurses said, \u2018We have other things to work on!\u2019 \u201d Mitchell says. \u201cSo I went back to their CNOs and said, \u2018Let\u2019s do another six weeks.\u2019 \u201d

Five years later, the group\u2014now known as the Nursing Informatics Council\u2014is still meeting one day a month. Mitchell no longer runs the meeting, having handed it over to one of the five nurse informaticists who work for her, and it has expanded to about 30 people, including representatives of specialty areas like respiratory therapy and pharmacy. Some members attend by phone if their schedules are too busy, but Mitchell believes that meeting in person has a lot of value.

\u201cEveryone [in IT] knows that when they\u2019re designing something, they have to run it by the Nursing Informatics Council,\u201d Mitchell says. \u201cThe council does all the testing, and in return they also advocate for the new technology\u201d with the nursing staff in their institutions.

The Nursing Informatics Council also gets recommendations from several ad hoc groups for special areas like mental health and neonatal intensive care.

Mitchell has a seat on THR\u2019s CNO council, where she keeps the system\u2019s nurse executives informed about the progress of IT project that affect their staffs, and writes IT policies for them to approve.

Mitchell and her staff also present frequently at THR\u2019s Nursing Congress, a group of about 150 that includes staff representatives from each hospital as well as a number of specialty areas. The Congress meets every other month to discuss issues related to nursing.

She recently used that meeting to demonstrate an inpatient portal that had been unenthusiastically received at its two pilot sites. She received useful feedback on which features the nurses thought would be most important to their patients and which ones weren\u2019t performing as well as they needed to.

Occasionally Mitchell has to elbow her way into a project to advocate for clinicians\u2019 interests. For example, she\u2019s assigned herself to work on THR\u2019s secure messaging project, ostensibly run by the IT department.

\u201cThe more things I can put my hands on, the more things I can influence,\u201d she says. \u201cYou have to be willing to step in and identify opportunities, assert yourself, take the bull by the horns. If they don\u2019t want you there, they\u2019ll tell you.\u201d","saveContent":"How can chief nursing informatics officers advance their organization\u2019s IT mission with nurses? Make sure they have a strong connection with the chief nursing officer, give nurses a seat at the IT planning table, volunteer for projects that aren\u2019t necessarily in the CNIO job description, and generally stay visible, says award-winning CNIO Mary Beth Mitchell, RN, of Texas Health Resources.

\u201cYou have to advocate for your customers,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen I was a nurse, my patients were my customers, and now, the nurses are my customers. It doesn\u2019t mean they get everything they want, but it does mean I\u2019m out there listening to my users and responding to them. You can\u2019t just sit in an office and do this job.\u201d

Mitchell\u2019s most recent honor is the HIMSS 2015 Nursing Informatics Leadership Award, to be presented at March 3 at this year\u2019s HIMSS Conference and Exhibition in Las Vegas. She oversees nursing adoption, utilization and optimization of the organization\u2019s Epic EHR, as well as other information technologies used by the nursing staff.

Mitchell is THR\u2019s first CNIO and has defined the role in a way that sets the bar high. During her tenure, THR has been recognized as an EMRAM Stage 7 organization by HIMSS Analytics, and has won HIMSS\u2019s Davies Award for using health information technology to substantially improve patient outcomes while achieving return on investment.

All that success has come directly from good communication. Mitchell assumed the CNIO role in 2010 after working almost 15 years in other roles at THR, along with a two-year stint at Tenet Healthcare. She spent her first two months on the job just talking to nurses and finding out their IT-related pain points.

When she heard consistent complaints about the form used for taking admission histories, she convened a group of nurses, one from each of THR\u2019s hospitals, to meet with the IT staff once a week for six weeks at THR\u2019s corporate offices to redesign the form and its related workflow.

How CNIOs can help drive technology adoption

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