Adding a Nursing Information Technology Subscale to the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index

In the past decade, the use of information technology (IT) to support healthcare delivery has greatly expanded. Introducing new clinical information systems and updating existing systems require continued learning and training among registered nurses (RNs) and other clinicians. Consequently, a 5-item measure was designed as a subscale to the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index. This new subscale, the Nursing Information Technology Subscale (NITS) measures RNs' perception of the extent to which IT in their practice environment supports patient care delivery. A psychometric evaluation of the NITS was conducted at 8 Veterans Affairs hospitals. The findings demonstrated that this brief subscale has acceptable reliability as well as convergent and discriminant validity.