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Current Strategies to Implement Informatics into the Nursing Curriculum: An Integrative Review
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Background and significance
Informatics is an integration of basic computer skills, information literacy and information management which are essential components of current nursing practice (Technology Informatics Guiding Educational Reform (TIGER), 2009). With the constantly changing landscape of healthcare, nurse educators are faced with many challenges in preparing students for the increasing complexities of the work environment. The current expanded use of computers and information systems in healthcare means that all healthcare workers, especially nurses will need to interface with multiple technological sources to either enter or extract data to aid them in caring for patients (Gonen, Sharon, Offir & Lev-ari, 2014; Benner, Sutphen, Leonard and Day, 2010). This highly technological environment demands that nursing students are educated to think critically and exercise clinical decision- making while delivering safe quality care. This sentiment is echoed by an AACN (2008) report that noted that registered nurses need critical thinking skills, independent clinical judgment, management and organizational skills, leadership abilities, and technological understanding to practice in the varied healthcare settings that exist. It is therefore important to educate nursing students on how to use available technologies to access evidenced-based data that supports decision-making as well as how to input and retrieve data pertinent to patient care.
Current research indicates that the use of healthcare information technology is expected to grow significantly and therefore, all prospective healthcare professionals must develop strategies for managing these continuing changes (De Gagne, Bisanar, Makowski & Neumann, 2012). The Institute of Medicine (IOM) (2003) proposed five core competencies that all health clinicians should have, regardless of their discipline, in order to meet the needs of the 21st- century health system. These five core competencies are provision of patient centered care, interdisciplinary collaborative working teams, engagement in evidence-based practice, and application of quality improvement practices as well as the utilization of...