title: On the essential integration of nursing and informatics.
abstract: This paper asserts that nursing knowledge is fundamentally inseparable from the strategies and structures that represent it. Nursing informatics comprises a new disciplinary focus that results from a blend of nursing and informatics. The technologies of informatics, communications, computer science, decision science, human information processing, and knowledge engineering, provide critical care nurses with the support necessary for contemporary nursing practice. Informatics technologies enable nurses to communicate, process knowledge in new and more efficient ways, and better understand the nature of nursing thinking.
authors.forename: P F
authors.initials: PF
authors.lastname: Brennan
authors.forename: J J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Fitzpatrick
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units; D008490:Medical Informatics; D009736:Nursing Process