Strengthening Informatics and Health Care Technologies Curriculum for Nurse Educator Students.

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Health Informatics
• Educational Technology

Background:

• Nursing practice increasingly integrates informatics and health care technologies.
• Existing professional guidelines offer general competencies but lack specialty-specific application for nurse educators.
• There is a need to define and integrate essential informatics and technology knowledge for nurse educator students.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify essential informatics and health care technologies knowledge and skills for nurse educator students.
• To strengthen the integration of these competencies into a university's nursing education curriculum.
• To provide a framework for other nursing programs to enhance their informatics and technology curriculum.

Main Methods:

• A systematic literature search across three databases identified 11 relevant peer-reviewed articles.
• Competencies from three professional guidelines were cross-mapped with the literature findings.
• Thematic analysis was performed on the selected literature to identify key areas.

Main Results:

• Five core themes emerged, aligning with professional guidelines: electronic health records (EHRs) and standardized terminologies, use of current and emerging health care technologies, data utilization for practice improvement, integration of informatics standards, and promotion of digital literacy.
• These themes directly informed the revision of objectives in master's-level nurse educator courses.
• The identified themes provide a practical guide for curriculum development.

Conclusions:

• The study successfully identified and integrated key informatics and health care technologies competencies into a nurse educator program.
• The findings offer a valuable resource for other nurse educator programs seeking to update their curricula.
• This work supports the professional development of current nurse educators in digital health competencies.