Preparing Nurses to Work in Technology Enabled Healthcare Environments
The proposed project provides new nurses with the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to work in clinical practice settings in British Columbia, Canada and Internationally. The project will lead to the development of nurses who can not only articulate how nursing practice can be captured in health information systems (HIS) and telehealth applications, but can also use technology to enhance the safety and quality of their practice. The project will also allow for a new typical curriculum to be disseminated widely by providing faculty from BCs Schools of Nursing with curriculum components or learning activities/teaching tools that can be used to integrate informatics and information management content into nursing courses.
Objectives of the Project:
The objectives of the proposed project are to: (1) identify nursing informatics and information management competencies required of undergraduate baccalaureate nurses in BC, (2) identify teaching/learning activities that can be used to develop these informatics competencies within the context of a typical undergraduate nursing curriculum, (3) develop a laddered curriculum that leads to the development of these competencies, (4) pilot and evaluate the curriculum components (i.e. teaching/learning activities), and (5) use a train the trainer approach to disseminate the curriculum.
Background:
National nursing bodies have identified a critical need to integrate informatics and information management competencies into nursing curricula. Many undergraduate nursing informatics competencies have been identified, but they have not yet been fully identified, defined, integrated, evaluated or disseminated to Schools of Nursing internationally (Weaver et al., 2010). The development of a curriculum that supports informatics competencies development is critical to todays and tomorrows nursing practice [Institute of Medicine (IOM), 2010]. The project is unique as it has high impact and volume, having the potential to bring Schools of Nursing into the 21st century healthcare environment.
Methods:
The project will take place in 4 Phases. Phase 1 will consist of a systematic review of the literature focusing on nursing informatics and information management competencies at the baccalaureate level. Phase 2 will involve focus groups (with key policy, professional and academic stakeholders) to identify current and future information management and informatics competencies for nurses working in BC. In Phase 3 the researchers will integrate nursing informatics and information management components into a typical nursing curriculum, and in Phase 4 they will evaluate these curriculum components for their ability to develop undergraduate nursing informatics competencies.
