In this episode, we begin a three-part exploration of Nursing Informatics as a career and a profession. The series begins with Dr. Angela Ross interviewing Dr. Nelita Iuppa about her career path and trajectory in nursing informatics. Health and medical informatics is the science of how to use data, information, and knowledge to improve human health and the delivery of health care services. Both Dr. Ross and Dr. Iuppa are members of the HIMSS Nursing Informatics Community Steering Committee.

This series is intended to highlight the roles of informaticists in clinical care and highlight the critical need for informaticists as healthcare continues its digital transformation. Nurse informaticists play a critical role in healthcare's digital transformation, continuing their traditional role as the primary human interface between patients and the rest of the healthcare system. No other career offers an opportunity to so directly apply technology in a compassionate and patient-centered way.

Dr. Iuppa begins by reminding us that, while technology can be learned, nurse informaticists bring their clinical skills and compassion to their roles in ways that other informaticists can't. Dr. Iuppa describes her education and the path she took to her current role, including early formal education that laid a foundation for building her career. She discusses the role of mentors and mentoring, and how important it is to care for the colleagues around you.

The episode concludes with a discussion of some of the challenges that nurses can face in an informatics career and also the joys of having a dual role in the exciting frontier of technology alongside the traditional caring role that nurses everywhere fill.