Award Date

May 2017

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Nursing (ND)

Department

Nursing

First Committee Member

Carolyn Sabo

Second Committee Member

Jessica Dolen

Third Committee Member

Jay Shen

Number of Pages

176

Abstract

Technology has changed how registered nurses (RNs) provide care at the bedside. As more technologies are utilized to improve quality of care, safety of care, maximize efficiencies, and decrease costs of care, one must question how well the information technologies (IT) are fully integrated and utilized by the front-line bedside nurse in his or her practice. Despite the pervasiveness of IT in healthcare, there is a paucity of literature on how Chief Nursing Officers (CNOs) assure the ongoing education and training for nurses to maintain IT competencies in the practice environment.

From this author’s lived experience as a CNO, it is imperative to gain a better understanding of how to maintain nurses full use of IT capabilities in the electronic health record (EHR) to provide safe, quality care. This Doctor of Nursing project developed an ongoing EHR training program, for staff nurses, that was hard-wired into the organization’s educational plan. Additionally, this project was designed to increase nurses’ confidence to more effectively and efficiently navigate through the EHR and locate desired information in a timely manner for providing optimal clinical care.

This DNP project identified, organized, and streamlined current resources into a sustained, multifaceted ongoing training program. Materials, guides, and lesson plans were presented in a module format with multiple educational classes offered. The “Post-Training Only Evaluation Survey Template” instrument, developed by the Northwest Center for Public Health Practice from the University of Washington, was used to assess nurses’ ability to navigate pertinent clinical information post training. The survey tool provided feedback to the project sponsor to help identify areas where the course content did not improve the trainees’ efficiency and effectiveness in using the EHR. This project provided information that will be helpful in developing future trainings and will be adopted by the facility for use by other disciplines and units.

Literature provided little guidance on how to maintain nurses’ competencies in IT in the practice environment. This project served as a foundation for altering future trainings in IT, including the EHR, to better meet the needs of registered nurses. Chief Nursing Officers can foster ongoing IT learning through providing supportive processes that empower nurses to acquire the knowledge and skills to be effective in their roles.

Keywords

adult education; benner; computers; information technology; nursing informatics

Disciplines

Education | Library and Information Science | Nursing

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Download


Share

COinS