UAB School of Nursing Associate Professor Marisa Wilson, DNSc, MHSc, RN-BC, CPHIMS, FAAN, FAMIA, has been inducted as a Fellow of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA). Wilson is one of 10 nurses in the inaugural class of 130 Fellows.
“AMIA wanted to craft a fellowship that was specific to individuals who moved the field forward through rigorous work, translation and optimization in health care, so FAMIA was born,” said Wilson, who is the Coordinator of UAB School of Nursing’s Informatics Specialty Track and Director of the School’s Health Systems Leadership Pathway. “It’s quite an honor to be part of this inaugural group and selected to represent not only AMIA but also the nurses of AMIA and UAB.”
AMIA is a national organization of informatics professionals including physicians, nurses and others involved in informatics in health care. Previously, the Association had a fellowship for researchers, but did not have a way to recognize informaticians working in translation and implementation. The new fellowship emphasizes the equal importance of different roles in informatics, Wilson said.
“We have people doing great research in informatics, and in order to disseminate that, you need people who can translate it into real life and real practice,” Wilson said. “Without translation, those in practice are working without the best evidence.”
As a board certified informaticians with more than 15 year’s experience as a nurse clinician and 25 years implementing information systems in public health and acute care settings, Wilson hopes that as a Fellow, she can encourage more nurses’ involvement in the Association.
“AMIA has a relatively new Clinical Informatics Conference (CIC) where the translations and operational work of my peers is disseminated, and it’s very exciting to move into that group,” Wilson said. “It is important to increase the number of informatics nurses attending the CIC. Nurses in informatics are doing very important work. I’m hoping to encourage more nurses to attend and present their work, and to be part of FAMIA.”
UAB Associate Professor of Medicine and Family and Community Medicine, Amy Wang, MD, MBI, FAAFP, FAMIA, and Director of the UAB Informatics Institute James Cimino, MD, FACMI, FACP, FNYAM, FAMIA, were also members of the inaugural class.
