Professional Experience Placement

This paper Nursing informatics in nursing education: a challenge to nurse teachers written by Saranto and Tallberg (1998) demonstrates that the themes of lack of familiarity with software; lack of confidence; inaccessibility of information systems; and educational preparation persist as barriers in developing health informatics in its various forms in nursing education. Later studies such as Hegney et al ( 2007) and the recent Gray et al (2014) continue to demonstrate that change in the integration of health informatics into health professions’ curriculum and workplace is slow. Gains have been made through the report of a number of studies  that have trialled various methods to test feasibility, efficacy , usability or acceptance in the classroom or workplace with varying results.  Furthermore, a number of benefits and impediments have been identified.  I have mentioned many of these in previous blogs.  Saranto and Tallberg (1998) conclude by suggesting that further research into the information a nurse needs to know to use health informatics effectively in their role.  Since this article was written the integration of informatics into the nursing curriculum has been mandated by ANMAC (2014) and informatics competencies (2014) are now drafted. The nursing profession in Australia is being guided into using informatics within the discipline. However, there is further leadership required to, if using digital devices or mobile learning is to be accepted as a legitimate nursing function. Clinical supervisors are vested with the responsibility of contributing to the next generation of nurses being work-ready.  These nurses are vital for modelling appropriate behaviour when accessing digital information. It is important these ‘change-champions’ are educationally prepared leading students nurses into a digitalised profession (2014), performing connected health and promoting life-long learning.

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