News Releases

Staggers to Receive National Nursing Informatics Award

November 8, 2013

Award recognizes nursing professional whose career has significantly impacted nursing informatics.

Baltimore, Md. – The University of Maryland School of Nursing is pleased to announce that Professor Nancy Staggers, PhD ‘92, RN, FAAN, will be the recipient of an American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) signature award. She will be presented with the Virginia K. Saba Informatics Award at AMIA’s leadership dinner being held Nov. 15 in Washington, D.C.

This award is given to a nursing professional who has made a significant impact on the care of patients and the discipline of nursing. Honorees must have a focus in nursing informatics, a commitment to AMIA through membership, and have shown vision, leadership, and a global impact. The recipient must have made a strong contribution to the nursing professional practice, education, administration, research, and/or health policy.

“Informatics tools have gone from novel and rare to essential and commonplace. It is a very exciting area of work,” Staggers said.  “I'm pleased to have been a part of the initial road integrating these tools into health care and into the nursing arena and am humbled by the recognition from my colleagues.”

Over her 28-year informatics career, Staggers has earned international clinical informatics expert status in both operational health information technology and academic environments.  Staggers has led major electronic health record projects for the U.S. Department of Defense and public and private sectors, transitioning institutions from paper to electronic health care. Staggers’ initial work on informatics competencies in the U.S. now includes efforts in Finland, Brazil, the Philippines, and South Korea. In addition, Staggers led the American Nurses Association's taskforce in rewriting the national scope and practice documents for nursing informatics in 2001 and 2008, and was co-leader of the usability collaborative for Technology Informatics Guiding Educational Reform. Staggers has also published more than 100 scholarly articles and book chapters.

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The University of Maryland School of Nursing, founded in 1889, is one of the oldest and largest nursing schools, and is ranked eleventh nationally. Enrolling more than 1,700 students in its baccalaureate, master’s, and doctoral programs, the School develops leaders who shape the profession of nursing and impact the health care environment.