Her Story
About Toni
Toni Hebda serves as adjunct faculty for Chamberlain University in nursing informatics and nursing education. She began her career after graduating as a nurse in 1974 from a hospital-based school of nursing and worked as a staff nurse before focusing the majority of her career on education, teaching beginning nurses and staff development as well as at the graduate level. Hebda earned her baccalaureate degree from Duquesne University and both of her master's degrees along with her PhD in education from the University of Pittsburgh, where her dissertation focused on computer-assisted instruction in nursing; she later earned a second graduate degree in information science. She is credentialed in nursing informatics by the American Nurses Credentialing Center and as a nurse educator through the National League for Nursing. Hebda has authored a textbook on nursing informatics and belongs to the American Nurses Association, the American Medical Informatics Association, and the American Nursing Informatics Association. She is actively working with the non-profit NLIEC to develop an educational electronic health record.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Toni
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to having a certain amount of drive and being willing to work beyond the standard 8 hours. In many positions they are not going to pay you to sit and write an article 8 hours a day. If you want to be recognized as an expert in your area you have to invest a little bit extra time for credentials, for extra reading, for extra writing, for extra committee work.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
It's important to network not only to further your own learning but also to secure employment opportunities. Many students don't belong to any professional organizations and don't realize the value of networking with others.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
If they're specifically interested in informatics then they need to determine whether they want to go nursing informatics or other variations such as health informatics. They also need to consider what their long-term goals are because if they're looking at certification then which certifications meet their goals best such as the nursing informatics certification through the American Nurses Credentialing Center or credentials through HIMSS or certifications for EPIC.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge is discussion about AI and nurses needing a key role in helping to write and approve AI applications. Understanding all of that is tough because we are running behind in how we educate people and curriculum compression makes it difficult to integrate throughout the curriculum. The biggest opportunity is that for nursing informatics we are very nicely positioned to move in to be the local experts in data analytics and help executives see what the data shows to inform their decisions and help guide people to evaluate and construct those artificial intelligent applications.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I think it's important to have quality. So if I'm writing something then I want to make sure that I have given people credit in terms of citing appropriately and my information is timely and correct.
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