AMIA 2006, which was held November 11 through 15 in Washington, DC, is now history but will be remembered by the nursing informatics community for some time to come for outstanding education, prestigious awards, and new and renewed friendships.
The AMIA Nursing Informatics Working Group (NIWG) sponsored its 3rd Annual Nursing Informatics Symposium on Saturday, November 11. "RHIOs and Nursing: Information at the Center of Care" was an exciting symposium that provided 92 participants with a wealth of information about initiatives and opportunities across the country. Memorable highlights include the following:
* Emily Welebob, Vice President, Program Delivery, eHealth Initiative, provided an overview of national and state initiatives.
* Laura Adams, President and CEO of the Rhode Island Quality Institute, reminded us of how important it is to have patients as key participants in these initiatives and of our role as patient advocates.
* Joyce Sensmeier, Vice President Informatics, HIMSS, summarized progress on developing the interoperability standards needed for RHIOs and health information exchanges.
* Patti Brennan examined potential new economic methodologies for quantifying the values of RHIOs for nursing, which will be critical to their sustainability.
* Opportunities for additional networking and discussion abounded during the luncheon and a reception after the symposium.
Thanks to Annelle Tanner and her planning committee and sponsors for an informative, inspiring, and invigorating day!
On Sunday, Dr. Suzanne Bakken, Alumni Professor of Nursing and Professor of Biomedical Informatics at Columbia University, received the 2006 Virginia K. Saba Informatics Award for her distinguished informatics career, which has made such a significant contribution to patient care and the discipline of nursing. Congratulations on this wonderful and well-deserved honor, Suzanne!
On Monday evening, the NI-WG held its annual meeting. Members learned about the many ongoing NI-WG projects. Among the projects featured were the following:
* Nursing Informatics History. Bonnie Westra described progress toward creating a video history of approximately 150 nursing informatics pioneers. We were treated to a preview of the video history when we viewed a short segment of the videotaped interview of Virginia Saba. The History Project is also collecting historical documents, such as minutes, proceedings, policy reports, publications, software, and personal papers. All historical materials are being catalogued and archived at the National Library of Medicine, where they will provide us with invaluable teaching and research materials.
* Research. Anna McDaniel spearheaded the NI-WG response to the National Institute of Nursing Research's (NINR) draft strategic plan for 2006 to 2010. As a follow-up to the NI-WG's written response, Kathleen McCormick, Patti Abbott, and AMIA CEO and President Don Detmer were invited to meet with NINR leaders. Ultimately, some changes were made in the final version of the NINR strategic plan that better reflect the importance of nursing informatics. Also significant to our nursing informatics research community is the appointment of Dr. Suzanne Bakken to an NINR study section for a 4-year term beginning in July 2007.
* Education. Pat Hinton Walker summarized the outcomes of the 2006 Technology Informatics Guiding Educational Reform (TIGER) Summit, which was attended by 120 leaders from more than 40 nursing organizations, key federal agencies, other professional healthcare organizations, and the private sector. By the end of the summit, the nursing leaders had reached consensus on a shared vision for the future of nursing informatics and committed their organizations to taking specific actions in seven key areas: Management and leadership, education, communication and collaboration, informatics design, IT, policy and culture. For more information, see the TIGER Web site, http://www.umbc.edu/tiger/summit.
During Wednesday's AMIA award ceremony, Sookyung Huyn, Columbia University, received the AMIA's Harriet H. Werley Award for the paper making the greatest contribution to advancing the field of nursing informatics. Ms Huyn's paper was "Toward the Creation of an Ontology for Nursing Document Sections: Mapping Section Headings to the LOINC Semantic Model." Tae Youn Kim, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, received the Nursing Informatics Working Group Student Paper Award for her paper "Predictive Modeling for the Prevention of Hospital-Acquired Pressure Ulcers."
Plan now to attend the 2007 AMIA Spring Congress in Orlando, FL, May 22 to 24. Judy Murphy, the Scientific Program Committee Chair, noted that this year's Congress has five tracks: clinical decision support, nursing informatics, PHRs, public health informatics, and translational research informatics. So there is something for everyone, and we expect nursing to be even more visible than usual!
Also plan to attend AMIA 2007: From Foundations to Applications to Policy in Chicago, IL, November 10 to 14, 2007. Planning for the 2007 Nursing Informatics Symposium, which will focus on PHRs, has already begun under the leadership of Michele Norton. See the AMIA Web site for details as they become available: http://www.amia.org.
Last, but certainly not least, consider joining our dynamic AMIA NI-WG. For more information see our Web site: http://www.amia.org/mbrcenter/wg/ni/.