U-M’s Chief Nursing Informatics Officer (CNIO) Marna Flaherty-Robb, is a partner in education and progress.
September, 2014
“I came up through the ranks as a staff nurse, clinical nurse specialist, Director of Nursing, Regional Manager, Associate Dean and then CNIO,” says Marna Flaherty-Robb, MSN, CNS, RN, the Chief Nursing Informatics Officer at University of Michigan Health System (UMHS). She describes her path to nursing leadership in information-enabled health care to be organic as required by the field, and enriched by the profession itself.
“Patient and family care has been my passion. Designing care in large organizations requires supreme and deep knowledge of how real work is done every day. It requires understanding of science, program and service delivery, and effectiveness evaluation of all along the way. You cannot reflect and improve this work unless you have conscious understanding of what data to collect in the natural order of work, and how to see it in real time reports, streaming data, and search methods to collect multiple pieces of information well organized to answer meaningful questions.”
At the core of advancing health care at U-M is recognition that evidence-based practice, with documentation and data compliance, can standardize and improve processes. And although implementation of major new clinical information systems—like electronic health records (EHRs) —can be difficult, good methodology makes a difference. Flaherty-Robb believes nurses at every level must be at the table and part of teams to improve understanding of patient and family story, organization of patient care and process flow to produce good documentation design, and resolution of debates on how configuration choices should be made to serve team knowledge for patient care and population health.Flaherty-Robb worked in close partnership with UMSN Adjunct Professor Margaret Calarco, who serves as 
Chief Nursing Officer at UMHS, and University of Michigan School of Nursing (UMSN) Dean Kathleen Potempa from the earliest days of promoting nursing informatics, building business cases, creating the nursing model of care, and moving forward with improvements in both patient care and nursing education. Flaherty-Robb was an early champion for UMSN’s new academic programs in health informatics (master’s degree focus and certificate). She also advocated for the use of nursing student interns as “at-the-elbow” support during the recent MiChart GoLive stage. “The students had valuable experiences, and the staff valued them being invested as both learners and helpers,” said Flaherty-Robb.
Chief Nursing Officer at UMHS, and University of Michigan School of Nursing (UMSN) Dean Kathleen Potempa from the earliest days of promoting nursing informatics, building business cases, creating the nursing model of care, and moving forward with improvements in both patient care and nursing education. Flaherty-Robb was an early champion for UMSN’s new academic programs in health informatics (master’s degree focus and certificate). She also advocated for the use of nursing student interns as “at-the-elbow” support during the recent MiChart GoLive stage. “The students had valuable experiences, and the staff valued them being invested as both learners and helpers,” said Flaherty-Robb.“The MiChart internship was an incredible experience,” confirmed Michael Talsma, a UMSN master’s student. “It's not every day that a student has the opportunity to participate in a premier health system’s EHR implementation.”
Flaherty-Robb’s nursing informatics team at UMHS looks ahead to more improvement in patient-centered care through the use of technology and evidence-based practices. They envision that nurses will continue to use informatics tools, methods, and standardization for both better health outcomes and workforce efficacy. “It will take a well-organized village to do this well," she says. "We have trust filled partnerships and deep relationships established to allow this work to be anchored and developed in an orderly and effective manner, with passion, with sciences, with effectiveness in work design and team performance.“
