There is a growing nursing shortage of crisis proportions, and this is also true of faculty who are qualified to teach nursing informatics.   So Duke's program has grown an innovative model with a program director who is a PhD nursing informatics researcher  (who has a background in practice-based clinical informatics), working in conjunction with informatics experts who are employed in informatics roles in a variety of health care settings.

Dr. Goodwin launched the program and has been program director since 1996.   Dr. Johnson joined Duke's nursing informatics faculty in 2006.