Effect of an informatics for Evidence-based Practice Curriculum on nursing informatics competencies
Introduction
Professional clinical societies, educational accreditation organizations, and informatics associations have initiated activities and in some instances, guidelines or criteria for informatics competencies for clinicians, informatics specialists, and informatics innovators [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]. In addition, reports, such as that of the Pew Health Professions Commission and the Institute of Medicine have identified effective and appropriate use of information and communication technologies as an essential competency for all health care professionals [7], [8]. At the international level, the International Medical Informatics Association has defined and promulgated a set of recommendations that emphasizes inclusion of content in all health care professional undergraduate curricula that enables health care professionals to “efficiently and responsibly use information processing methodology and information and communication technology” [2].
Within the context of improving patient safety and enabling evidence-based nursing practice, the Columbia University School of Nursing has initiated curricular changes to enhance the informatics competencies of students and graduates [9], [10], [11], [12], [13]. The purpose of this paper is to describe the effect of an evolving informatics for evidence-based practice (IEBP) curriculum on nursing informatics competencies in three student cohorts in the combined BS/MS program for non-nurses.
Section snippets
Informatics competencies
Beyond information technology's explicit role in improving patient safety and enabling evidence-based practice [14], [15], some have argued that it is a critical component to managing the severe nursing shortage [16]. Consequently, although research related to informatics competencies in nursing has been conducted for more than a decade [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], there is now heightened interest in ensuring that graduates of nursing programs have sufficient informatics competencies to meet
Design and research questions
A repeated-measures, non-equivalent comparison group design (Fig. 2) was used to address three research questions:
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Were there differences in self-reported nursing informatics competencies before and after completion of an IEBP curriculum?
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Did graduating students achieve informatics competence as measured by self-report?
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Were there differences in self-reported nursing informatics competencies of graduating students who completed different versions of the IEBP curriculum?
Sample
The convenience sample
Sample
The samples for the analyses were: BS class of 2001 (n = 16), BS class of 2002 (n = 64 matched admission and graduation surveys; n = 91 graduation surveys), and BS class of 2003 (n = 152 admission surveys; n = 57 graduation surveys). Response rates were as follows: class of 2001—40%; class of 2002—admission 100%, graduation 87.5%; and class of 2003—admission 98.1%, graduation 37.5%.
The majority of participants in each year were female and Caucasian. (Table 3). Mean age was less than 30 in all 3 years.
Discussion
The types of Computer Skill competencies that the students rated as greater than 3 on admission for the classes of 2002 and 2003 were generic in nature and reflective of basic computer literacy. This was also true of six of the eight items in Informatics Knowledge: Impact. For the class of 2003, students’ ratings of their competence also were ≥3 for Computer Skills: Data Access and Informatics Knowledge: Systems. These findings are consistent with the age of the study samples. Although the
Acknowledgments
The Informatics for Evidence-based Practice Curriculum was supported by Informatics for Evidence-based NP Practice (HRSA D09HP00261, S. Bakken, Principal Investigator). The Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning provided additional support for the development of the PDA student clinical log. We acknowledge and thank the following who have contributed to the development, implementation, and evaluation of the Informatics for Evidence-based Practice Curriculum: Christine Curran,
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