This paper aims to explore nurses’ understanding of nursing informatics (NI). The structured and open-ended questionnaires were used to explore their knowledge of NI. Between 17 and 18 October 2023, the survey was conducted via a web portal and targeted 124 nurses attending in a nursing management training programme at the West China Hospital, Sichuan University. A total of 57.3% (71/124) of the nurses completed the survey. Of these, 29.6% (21/71) were unaware of NI and 70.4% (50/71) were aware of NI. However, only one of the nurses gave an accurate definition of NI. The results of this study suggest that there is a limited understanding of NI among senior nurses in mainland China, indicating a need to improve NI education for nurses.