Professional Experience Placement

This article by Button, Harrington and Belanger (2013) reviewed the literature that focused on students and educators involved with elearning in undergraduate programs. The authors argued that the introduction of technology into the nursing curriculum is the most significant change since the move to the tertiary education sector.

The authors provide definitions for elearning, including nursing informatics which they stated were the skills required by the registered nurse to integrate nursing, computer and information science to manage and communicate data, information and knowledge in nursing practice.

The final number of studies reviewed by the authors was 28, from 8 countries. The authors identified three main themes.  These were issues relating to elearning for students; using information communication technology and staff development relating to elearning for educators.

The authors grouped issues and commented on the negatives of elearning that related to lack of skills and anxiety that impacted on the capacity of students to learn. There were technical issues that also impacted on their learning. The lack of explicit links between the theoretical and practice environments were made explicit in the curriculum.

The positive aspects included flexibility, enabled collaboration, provided rapid communication and since 2004 were considered ubiquitous in the environment. This  finding is of interest as there continues to be a lack of policies, guidelines or codes regarding the use of technology within the health care setting by health professionals. It is time to consider the benefits and barriers of using this technology in a safe and effective manner, rather than excluding the use of devices at the bedside. To access the benefits of using ICT in health care environments the authors also indicated there needed to be an upskilling in information literacy of students and educators. The authors concluded there is a need to develop robust quantitative instruments to gather data that would enable the development of contemporary curriculum.

Research at this university is exploring the use of technology in health care settings to inform curriculum and guide the next generation of nurses in its use, while providing safe and effective care.

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