Nursing Informatics Innovators: Patricia M. Schwirian
Dr. Schwirian is Professor Emerita, The Ohio State University College of Nursing & Department of Family Medicine. She may be best known for two models that were published in Computers In Nursing (CIN) in the “very early days.” The first was dubbed “Schwirian’s Cube” by Gary Hales -- even though it was a parallelepiped and not a cube. The Cube first appeared in CIN when it was still an 8-page, cream-colored newsletter published by J.B. Lippincott. The second model was named “The NI Pyramid” proposed as “a model for research in nursing informatics.” Pat’s earliest involvement in NI was proud service in Gary Hales’ original “posse” as the first Research Editor of Computers in Nursing. In 1982 she was one of the first nurses to present at the Sixth Annual Symposium on Computer Applications in Medical Care which was the precursor to AMIA. Most recently, she is doing graduate study in Healthcare Informatics at Drexel University.