Using an Evidence-Based Approach for Electronic Health Record Downtime Education in Nurse Onboarding

Electronic health record systems have been widely implemented throughout healthcare settings over the last few years, and nurses rely on these systems to obtain information about patients, make clinical decisions, and deliver safe and appropriate care. Health information technology systems have electronic health record downtime episodes both due to scheduled maintenance and unforeseen circumstances. The ability to deliver safe and effective care during electronic health record downtime episodes is important, yet training on electronic health record downtime is rarely included for nursing staff. This quality improvement project implemented an electronic health record downtime training course and administered it to 50 onboarding nurses within the hospital facility. The participants indicated a positive perception of electronic health record downtime preparedness after the course offering related to ability to find and follow downtime procedures. However, no precourse metrics were obtained, and therefore it is uncertain if this positive perception is a direct result of the electronic health record downtime training course. While initial results are promising, further investigation will need to be conducted to determine training course effectiveness.