Facilitating adoption of informatics and meaningful use of electronic health records with nursing faculty

Abstract

Objective: This educational development project focused on increasing nursing faculty adoption of informatics and nursing student use of electronic health records (EHRs) to foster meaningful use in an academic setting. The primary aims of the project were: to increase knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSA) of nursing faculty about informatics and EHRs; and to increase student use of EHRs in on-campus labs. The secondary goal was to enhance faculty adoption and pedagogical incorporation of informatics into the nursing curriculum.

Methods: A one-group pre-test/post-test program evaluation design was used to survey the impact of a series of seminars and national consultants’ presentations to faculty regarding their knowledge, skills, and attitudes about informatics and the use of EHRs. This project occurred over an academic year at a health science center school of nursing.

Results: Pre/post matched pair means survey scores showed faculty experienced an increase in both knowledge and skills about informatics and technologies, and had slightly more favorable attitudes about EHRs and informatics at year end. Nursing student use of EHRs in the clinical laboratory also increased. Limitations to this small scale evaluation pilot were survey design and need for more intensive education with a specific informatics/EHR content-focused faculty task force.

Conclusions: Nursing faculty adoption of informatics and early meaningful use of EHRs requires organizational responsiveness, faculty incentives, equipment purchases, and expert consultants to foster faculty development and student learning in state-of-the-art on-campus labs. Replication of this program development would benefit other schools of nursing.