Nursing informatics is a field of nursing that incorporates nursing, computer, and information sciences to maintain and develop medical data and systems to support the practice of nursing, and to improve patient care outcomes. Technologies that have evolved due to health care/nursing informatics include:

• Computerized provider order entry (CPOE)
• Electronic medical records (EMRs)
  • Test results
  • Progress notes
  • Nursing notes
  • Medication records

Nurses need information to care for patients safely. They need to be able to access medical histories, medication lists, lab and imaging results, and physician/interdisciplinary team notes to get a complete picture of a patient's clinical status. They use this information to make decisions efficiently to improve patient care outcomes.

Nurse informaticists, as well as other health care informaticists (pharmacists, physicians, etc.), play a critical role in the continuous development and improvement of health care technology. Communication is inarguably one of the most important aspects of patient safety. The contribution of nurse informaticists in developing and improving technology such as electronic medical records and computerized provider ordering has been crucial in reducing medical errors, patient care delays, and health care costs.

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