Polun Chang

My journey in NI critically started with my visit to the Biomedical Informatics Department of Columbia University in early when Dr Shortliffe was the program chair and his introduction to me to meet Dr Bakken. Dr Bakken suggested me to submit our work to the NI2003 in Brazil. I didn’t attend that meeting due to SARS in Taiwan but I got a link to keep me moving: Dr Park, Chair of NI2006.

Self Reflection and Strategically Determined to Make the Move

One astonishing fact in NI2003 to me was that there was only one poster submission from Taiwan! We could and should be far better than this because Taiwan has been excellent in our medical care quality, national health insurance program and ICT industry. I, as a health informatics professional in the best medical university in Taiwan, decided to make a difference and was determined to help our nurses make their sounds in NI2006. We held many nation-wide informatics training workshops for the nurses with a tool they were all familiar with: Excel. I used the Excel VBA to introduce key concepts of health informatics, such as Usability, Interface, Need Analysis, Programming, Testing, Prototype Designing, Multi-disciplinary and Participatory Team, etc., and keeping mentoring and supporting many nurses and their team to develop their own solutions. Many our nurses were inspired and determined to step out to make nursing informatics as part of their professionalism. We set the NI2006 as our target to make our sounds heard! The Taiwan Nursing Informatics Association was formally established right after the NI2006 when Drs Marion Ball, Suzanne Bakken, Robyn Carr and Hyeoun-Ae Park came to witness our establishment! (We missed Dr Heimar Marin due to VISA problem.)

Continuous Support from International NI Communities, Especially AMIA NI WG, IMIA NI SIG and ANI

After 2006, more NI experts were invited to Taiwan to share with us their wisdom and visions, such as the Drs Virginia Saba, Marion Ball, Judy Murphy, Connie Delaney, Patricia Brennan, Bonnie Westra, Patricia Dykes, Peter Murray, Patricia Walker, Rosemary Kennedy, Brian Gugerty, Susan Newbold, Charlotte Weaver, Kaija Saranto, Jeongeun Kim, Anneli Ensio, Joyce Sensmeier, etc. Organizationally, AMIA, AMIA NI WG, ANI, University of Minnesota, University of Wisconsin, Columbia University, University of Maryland, Harvard University, Partners Healthcare, HIMSS NI, IMIA NI SIG, APAMI all made us better. We sincerely appreciate all these long-lasting international supports and friendships.

Our Nurse Are the Ones Who Make the History!

In NI2003, there was only 1 submission from Taiwan but we have 100 submissions from Taiwan in NI2014! We are the second country, after the United States, to have the largest submissions in global nursing informatics congress. Our nurses are making the history by making us heard internationally after one decade of hard work. All our medical centers have set the position of Nursing Informatics. Many NI teams played a leading role in building their hospital EHRs. In 2014, one of our NI team, lead by Jessie Kuo, won the first AMIA Provider Innovation in Informatics (Pi²) Award, which recognizes physician/nurse leaders for improving the quality of healthcare delivery through the innovative application and dissemination of informatics solutions.

Journey Just Began

We know we have done right things right but we understand we are not good enough. We have been lucky to enjoy so many warm supports and wisdom from international friends and organizations. We have seen our nursing colleagues in China started to join the global NI movement and looked for our supports. We Taiwan will make the best connection to link them to the world and the key pivot to make their great. We understand we need you all again!