Surveys highlight growing nursing informatics role, data protection concerns

HIMSS Analytics released a slew of industry surveys this week, offering interesting insights on data protection and nursing informatics.

HIMSS’ annual Nursing Informatics Workforce Survey found that the field has grown over the past few years with more nursing informatics specialists having post-graduate training and earning higher salaries.

The survey of 1,000 nursing informatics specialists found that 60 percent have a post-graduate degree; 43 percent have a master's degree or PhD in nursing; and 28 percent have a master's degree or PhD in informatics.

The average salary for nursing informatics specialists has increased from $98,703 in 2011 to $100,717 in 2014.

One-fifth of survey respondents have one to five years of clinical bedside experience, up from 12 percent in 2011, according to survey results. Seventy percent of survey respondents said informatics accounts for a significant portion of nurses' employment duties. The vast majority (81 percent) said they are satisfied or highly satisfied with their decision to pursue a career in informatics.

Meanwhile, a separate survey found that many hospitals depend on outdated and inefficient practices to backup and archive their patient data.

The survey was conducted in conjunction with Iron Mountain and polled 150 senior IT professionals nationwide to assess how they protect data from potential loss and archive it to meet long-term compliance requirements.

Inconsistent processes are putting data at risk and unnecessarily straining IT storage budgets, the survey found.

Most respondents said they classify an average of 75 percent of their clinical data as "active," which means they store it onsite for immediate access. Less than 30 percent of this data is accessed after 18 months, so organizations could save money using other storage mediums.

Just over half (52 percent) of hospitals reported that they have a data archiving strategy in place; of those that did, 83 percent cited compliance as the chief reason. Less one-third of respondents said they don't have disaster recovery and business continuity plans in place.

Almost half (42 percent) of hospitals said they don't have a documented data retention policy that specifies how long to keep backup and archival data and when they can destroy it, which could pose legal and compliance risks.

"The amount of data flowing through our healthcare system today has rendered the old ways of managing it obsolete," said Michael Leonard, director of product management, healthcare IT services for Iron Mountain.