Liberty MSN Nursing Informatics: practice experience hours and an informatics mentor

Informatics at Liberty, in brief

The Nursing Informatics concentration is a 36-credit online MSN. Beyond the shared nursing core, it includes HLTH 501, HLTH 503, INFO 668 and NURS 523. Courses are 8 weeks, and the next three listed starts are October 26, 2026, January 18, 2027 and February 15, 2027, and Liberty offers an accelerated one-year track for this concentration.

As in every Liberty MSN, the Practicum Gate, NURS 527, comes first and must be passed before any practicum course. The informatics plan adds that you need a background check before the informatics courses. INFO 668 also matters for timing: it is a listed prerequisite for NURS 685, so a late INFO course delays your first practice experience.

Liberty's MSN page says practicum hours can be completed in your own community, and all MSN practicums must be done within the United States. The Gate course guide explains the paperwork NURS 527 asks for.

The practice experience sequence

The three courses build from data work to leading change. The catalog gives 300 hours for the set and doesn't split them by course. Because NURS 686 centers on a capstone-style project, look for a site that can host a real project, with access to the data and internal approvals it needs, rather than simply the largest department nearby.

Older documents use NURS 630, 635 and 636 for these courses, and the 2022-23 handbook listed 200 hours. Follow the 2026-27 catalog if your plan is current.

Practice experience hours and project hours

The catalog footnote describes the 300 hours as practice experience hours and/or project hours. That wording is unique among Liberty's MSN concentrations, and it suggests some of your time may go to project work rather than time at a site. Liberty doesn't publish how much of the 300 may be project hours or how they are verified.

Ask your course faculty early how they want each type logged, and make sure your mentor understands the difference. Under the older handbook, logs and evaluations moved to InPlace from 2022, and hours counted only within course dates, after you and your preceptor had met. The same handbook put at least 80% of hours under preceptor supervision, leaving up to 10% each for professional development and for goal development or research.

Who can mentor you

The catalog asks for an approved experienced informatics clinician, and the older handbook called this person a mentor in an informatics setting. Unlike the Educator, Administration and Health Policy plans, the informatics wording doesn't name an MSN or doctorate. The older handbook's MSN-wide rules, though, asked every preceptor to hold a good-standing RN license and to have either an MSN or School of Nursing approval.

That leaves room for questions, especially if the best informatics person you know isn't a nurse or doesn't hold a graduate degree. Put the candidate's credentials and role to the practicum coordinator before you ask them to commit. Our preceptor requirements page sets the catalog wording beside the older handbook rules.

The course focus is your best screening tool: a mentor who works with clinical data, runs evidence-based informatics projects, and leads or evaluates system changes can support all three courses.

The practice experience site contract

Informatics students obtain a practice experience site contract, the informatics name for the preceptor site contract other MSN tracks use. You choose the site, and Liberty approves it. The older handbook encouraged sites that accept Liberty's Clinical Program Affiliation Agreement and offered an Attestation of Agreement letter for facilities that need no contract. The site contract page explains both.

If you already work for a health system with an informatics team, it's the obvious place to look. The last published workplace rule, in the 2022-23 handbook, allowed practicum at your employer only with unpaid hours, an affiliation agreement, and a role in some other program, unit or department than the one that employs you. For nurses already in an informatics role, that different-department condition needs careful thought; the employer site page walks through it. The pre-practicum clearance list, from AHA CPR and immunizations to the drug screen, is on the clearance page.

States closed to informatics practicum

Nursing Informatics is among the MSN tracks Liberty doesn't approve for practicum in Washington, where Liberty points students toward an approved state instead. The District of Columbia is excluded too, and students in U.S. territories must complete practice experience within the 50 states.

Wherever you complete hours, your RN license must be valid there, either the state's own license or a multistate license it accepts. Liberty adds that some states may hold back clinical sites for their in-state residential students. Enrollment isn't closed anywhere, since this is a non-licensure program; the limit falls on where your hours happen. If you're settled in Washington, Liberty's Nurse Educator and Nursing Administration tracks and its two dual degrees are the MSN options approved for practicum there. The state restrictions page compares every Liberty nursing program.

Why informatics students choose us

An informatics placement depends on finding the right mentor more than the right building, and on a site willing to give a student access to real systems and data. We search for experienced informatics clinicians and sites in your area, help you describe the data, project and leadership work the three courses ask for, and prepare the mentor and site details the Gate course collects along with the practice experience site contract.

We stay on call if a mentor changes jobs before NURS 687, and every lead we find supports the MSN practicum office's process. Liberty approves each site and mentor, and a mentor who has seen the data, project and leadership plan up front is ready for that step. Use the form below once your NURS 685 term is clear.