Developing nurse educators' computer skills towards proficiency in nursing informatics.

Area of Science:

• Nursing
• Health Informatics
• Information Science

Background:

• Electronic health records (EHR) are established, but structured documentation using nursing terminology, like nursing care plans, is crucial for advancing nursing informatics (NI).
• A project in Finland focused on developing a structured documentation model with nursing terminology, impacting NI competence development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the development of nursing informatics (NI) competence among nurse educators.
• To compare the NI competence of nurse educators with that of other healthcare professionals.

Main Methods:

• A survey using an e-questionnaire with 145 structured and 6 open questions was administered to 124 participants (85 pre-test, 39 post-test).
• Participants included nurse educators and professionals from Universities of Applied Sciences, hospitals, and health centers involved in a nursing documentation development project.
• Data analysis involved classification, comparison, descriptive statistics, and statistical parameters presented in figures and tables.

Main Results:

• Nurse educators exhibited good basic NI competences post-project.
• Nurse educators demonstrated superior information literacy and information management skills compared to other healthcare professionals.
• Information retrieval skills showed variability but improved consistently; nurse educators showed greater proficiency in evidence-based nursing and nursing process models.

Conclusions:

• The nursing documentation development project successfully enhanced NI competences among nurse educators.
• Nurse educators possess stronger NI skills, particularly in information literacy, management, evidence-based practice, and nursing process integration, compared to other healthcare professionals.