NR361 Week 6: interview with a nurse information expert
Interview a registered nurse who works as an information expert using the NR361 Interview Form, covering the importance of quality information in nursing practice, the roles and responsibilities of a nursing information expert, and how nurses use data to improve outcomes.
Editorial process
Last reviewed · August 14, 2026
The interviewee determines the grade
This assignment is scheduled work more than written work, and it fails on logistics far more often than on content. The first decision is who to interview. The brief lists acceptable job titles — nursing clinical information manager, super user, director of clinical education, chief information officer, quality or performance improvement nurse, nurse informaticist, telenursing specialist, nurse abstractor, case manager, compliance nurse — and the common thread is a registered nurse whose work is about information rather than about direct care. A ward nurse who is good with the electronic record does not qualify and will not have answers to the questions on the form. Contact your instructor before scheduling if you are unsure, because the brief tells you to and because discovering a bad fit afterwards costs the assignment. Contact the interviewee before you do anything else: an informaticist's diary, not your drafting, is what decides whether this submission lands on the due date.
The preparation the brief mandates is what separates a good interview from a transcription. Read all questions on the form first, including the four optional ones so you can choose the one that fits your interviewee, and note the two follow-up questions you answer yourself. Then read two scholarly resources before you go, chosen for this interviewee: GIGO — garbage in, garbage out — is named in the brief for a reason, so understand what poor data entry does downstream to quality reporting, clinical decision support and reimbursement. Read on interprofessional communication and on your interviewee's specialty. During the interview, ask the required five, listen for a concrete example rather than a job description, and ask what changed as a result. The course outcomes tell you what the marker wants: patient-care technologies for a diverse population, safeguards and decision support, and best evidence as a driver of change.
Likely learning objectives
Inferred from the brief — check these against your own rubric.
- 01Select an interviewee whose role genuinely concerns health information.
- 02Prepare with scholarly reading matched to the interviewee's specialty.
- 03Elicit concrete examples rather than role descriptions.
- 04Connect the interview to the stated course outcomes.
Read the full question
Review every instruction before using the planning guidance that follows.
Turn the brief into deliverables
- 01A registered nurse interviewee holding an information-related role.
- 02The completed NR361 Interview Form, submitted by the deadline.
- 03The five required questions asked.
- 04One of the four optional questions, chosen to fit the interviewee.
- 05The two follow-up questions answered by you.
- 06Two scholarly resources reviewed before the interview.
Choosing, preparing, interviewing, reflecting
Choosing an interviewee
Match a real information role to the list of acceptable titles.
Scheduling
Contact early, confirm, and allow up to an hour.
Preparing with the form
Read all questions, pick the optional one, note the follow-ups.
The two scholarly resources
GIGO, interprofessional communication, or the interviewee's specialty.
Conducting the interview
Ask for examples, follow up on outcomes, capture specifics.
Answering the follow-ups
Your own reflection against the three course outcomes.
The two scholarly resources you must read first
Recommended databases
- CINAHL
- PubMed Central
- American Nursing Informatics Association
- NCBI Bookshelf
Search sequence
- 1.Read an overview of nursing informatics as a specialty and its competencies.
- 2.Look up GIGO and the downstream effects of poor data quality.
- 3.Read one study on electronic record usability and its effect on nurses.
- 4.Find something specific to your interviewee's role.
- 5.Draft your follow-up questions before the interview, not after.
Reference shortlist
These are authoritative starting points, not a ready-made bibliography. A qualified reviewer must confirm that each source fits the assignment and supports the claim beside which it is cited.
Nothing here is cleared for citation until you have read it.
- 01
Informatics
StatPearls, NCBI Bookshelf, National Library of Medicine · 2023
The scope of health informatics and where the nurse informaticist sits in it.
- 02
The association between perceived electronic health record usability and professional burnout among US nurses
Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 28(8), 1632-1641 · 2021
A concrete consequence of information system design for nursing practice.
- 03
Successes and Barriers of Health Information Exchange Participation Across Hospitals in South Carolina From 2014 to 2020
JMIR Medical Informatics · 2023
What quality information across organisations requires, and where it fails.
- 04
Clinical Decision Support Systems
Fundamentals of Clinical Data Science, NCBI Bookshelf · 2019
The safeguards and decision-support tools named in Course Outcome 4.
Review before submission
Common mistakes
- Interviewing a staff nurse with no information role.
- Scheduling late and missing the deadline because of the interviewee's diary.
- Reading the form for the first time during the interview.
- Skipping the two scholarly resources the brief requires.
- Recording answers with no follow-up for a concrete example.
- Answering the two reflection questions with a summary of the interview.
Submission checklist
- The interviewee is an RN in an information-focused role.
- The instructor was consulted if suitability was uncertain.
- All five required questions were asked.
- Exactly one optional question was selected and asked.
- Both follow-up questions are answered in your own words.
- The form is submitted by the deadline in the required format.
Use this guide to plan and review your own work. Follow your institution's rules and read our academic-integrity policy.
Written by
Aaron Bishop
MA, Education
assignment interpretation and research-methods coaching across disciplines
Aaron leads the EssayCrackers editorial desk. He works on how assignment briefs are read — what a rubric is actually asking for, and where students most often answer a different question than the one set.
Reviewed by
Dr. Nathan Cole
PhD, Rhetoric & Composition
Argumentation and thesis development
Nathan teaches first-year composition and directs a university writing center. He reviews EssayCrackers guides for argumentative soundness and citation accuracy.