1980's:
- The size of personal computers (PC) became smaller while their capabilities increased (Saba, 2001). These technological advancements created high expectations for the benefits of nursing informatics (Thede, 2012).
- Nursing informatics originated in 1980’s to refer to computer technology, computer system, data processing (Saba, 2001).
- During the 1980’s there were significant financial investments and a big educational push to educate nurses in informatics (Norris & Brittain, 2012; Saba, 2001). And by 1985, computer technology classes were being offered at undergraduate and graduate levels (Saba, 2001).
- The Computers in Nursing journal was founded (Saba, 2001).
- International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) formally recognized nursing as integral and in 1982 the IMIA-Nursing Informatics Special Interest Group (IMIA/NI-SIG) was formed (Saba, 2001). IMIA/NI-SIG holds conferences every 3 years with the mandate to promote informatics education, collaboration, and support of NI development (Saba, 2001).
- 1980’s most Canadian hospitals had some form of computer information system for entering data (Kaminski, 2011).
- 1989 the International Council of Nurses (ICN) approved an initiative to develop a common NI language (Saba, 2001).