NUS Medicine launches new nursing-informatics degree

“Beyond traditional career pathways in clinical practice, education, research and management, nursing informatics significantly expands the range of professional roles available to nurses,” the medical school said.

“Graduates will gain dual expertise in care and technology, enabling them to practise as nurses while also taking on emerging roles such as clinical informatics specialists, digital health project managers, electronic health records implementation consultants and healthcare data analysts,” it added.

This comes after

, where he identified healthcare as one of four key sectors where the development and deployment of AI solutions will be focused under a national AI mission.

The new programme is for nursing students who also have a passion for technology and are keen on a broader career path, said Associate Professor Lydia Lau, deputy head of undergraduate education at NUS Nursing.

She added that graduates will be able to “apply technology meaningfully to patient care, contribute to system design, and respond confidently to the evolving demands of healthcare practice”.

“As healthcare becomes increasingly digital, nurses must be equipped to not only use technology, but also shape how it is designed, implemented and governed,” said Prof Lau.

“Nursing education, therefore, needs to shift its approach from simply training nurses to use digital tools, to preparing them to understand, evaluate and lead digital systems in real-world clinical practice.”

She noted that taking the concurrent degree programme would save students both time and money as it reduces the duration by six months, compared with completing a bachelor’s degree in nursing and a master’s in biomedical informatics separately.

Ms Theresa Samy, assistant director of nursing for nursing informatics at the National University Hospital, said that even older nurses are showing interest in how technology can be used to introduce data-driven changes that improve patient safety and staff well-being.

The new course will help establish informatics as a fundamental part of graduates’ nursing foundation, she said.

Alexandra Hospital senior staff nurse Leo Wong – whose work involves healthcare informatics and data systems and is currently pursuing the Master of Science in Biomedical Informatics at NUS Medicine – highlighted the value of the new programme for prospective nurses. He regards being tech-savvy as an important skill set for nurses.

“If I were a bachelor’s student again, I would definitely go for it,” said the 30-year-old.

Addressing concerns about recruiting and retaining nursing manpower in Singapore, Prof Lau said she is hopeful that the new programme would attract more to join the profession, particularly males.

“They realise that as a nurse, you don’t need to just do nursing, you can do other things,” she said.