Professional Experience Placement

This recently published qualitative study aimed to identify nursing graduates’ needs on entry to working in acute care settings from the perspectives of nurse supervisors.  A focus of group with six nurse educators was undertaken.  The interactions were recorded and thematically analysed.  For core themes were identified from the data analysis.  These were preparation of new graduates, organisational support, nursing informatics education for graduates in the organisation and ward culture. The authors provide further detail about these themes within the article.  The discussion surrounding these concepts indicate there needs to be more nursing informatics education provided prior to registration to enable work-readiness. However, it is highlighted that timing of systems training within their degree is important to ensure graduates are not overwhelmed at commencement of their career. The impact of avoidance and resistance from current staff towards graduates can negatively impact on their uptake and use of nursing informatics within their nursing practice. The study found that nurses currently have inadequate levels of digital literacy and are often unable to support new graduates learn the nursing informatics necessary to become competent in informatics within the organisation. It was reported that lack of access and time further hindered graduates’ ability to seek and retrieve information necessary for providing optimal patient care. The authors conclude by suggesting student nurses need access and familiarisation with a range of informatics platforms prior to graduation. They also note that strengthening graduate competence in nursing informatics is being hindered by a current lack of educational support for informatics  training of nurses already employed in healthcare settings.  The implementation of the recently released Australian digital Health agency digital health strategy priority 6 has the capacity to ameliorate this situation by provision of change—champions, on-demand training and ensuring nurses are included in decisions regarding nursing informatics training, access and use within healthcare environments.

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https://blogs.utas.edu.au/snm-pep/

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10376178.2017.1393317