An Electronic Medical Record Training Conversion for Onboarding Inpatient Nurses

In recent times, policies stemming from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 have served as a stimulus for healthcare organizations to adopt an electronic medical record. As a result, nurses are now more knowledgeable of and experienced with an electronic medical record. In August 2016, our facility converted from instructor-led training to electronic learning for inpatient nurse electronic medical record training, hoping to capitalize on previous experience with the clinical information system. However, a complete program evaluation of this transition had yet to be conducted. The purpose of this study was to evaluate electronic learning usability and the return on investment of an electronic medical record training conversion. Evaluations of electronic medical record electronic learning training were collected from 75 newly hired, inpatient nurses from November and December 2017, and compared to our instructor-led program. Results showed that users found it effective and were satisfied with this training method. The electronic learning had superior efficiency, reducing training time by ~50% compared to instructor-led training, while proving to yield effectiveness and satisfaction. The return on investment was $18 540, with a gain of 593.25 hours in nursing time during the study period of two months. These results support the organizational decision to convert to electronic learning, further supporting the conversion for other clinical roles.