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Background:
The recent IOM (2004) Report on the Education of Health Professionals identified five competencies that all health care professionals must have to practice in the current health care environment. These competencies include: patient-centered care, multidisciplinary care, evidence-based practice, quality improvement, and informatics. Although informatics is listed as a separate area, these competencies transcend the other competencies in that informatics serves as an infrastructure for evidence-based practice, patient centered care, interdisciplinary collaboration, and quality improvement. To further support the need for informatics competencies, one only needs to look at the recent announcement by the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, Dr. David Brailer, of the “Decade of Health Information Technology.” The announcement outlines a vision of a new health care delivery system built around four strategic goals: 1) use electronic health records to inform clinical practice, 2) interconnect clinicians through interoperable systems, 3) personalize health care through personalized health records, use of telehealth systems and enhancing informed consumer choice, and 4) improve population health through the use of surveillance architectures, monitoring and accelerating diffusion of research and evidence.
Purpose of the Task Group:
Provide recommendations to nurse educators regarding the development of student and faculty informatics competencies.
Specific Tasks to be Completed:
- Conduct a comprehensive review of the literature on informatics competencies for various levels of nursing education. Add this information to the NLN literature repository, and create an annotated bibliography.
- Develop and implement a survey to determine the extent to which and the ways in which current nursing curricula prepare student with necessary informatics competencies (i.e., computer literacy, information literacy, and overall informatics competencies) for nurses as outlined in the American Nurse Association’s Scope of Practice for Nursing Informatics and to determine faculty abilities to teach these competencies.
- Based on the information collected in Tasks 1 and 2, draft a position statement that specifies informatics competencies and formulates recommendations for how to achieve those competencies in all types of nursing programs, from practical nurse through doctoral.
- Establish and monitor an electronic “community” on informatics competencies for students and faculty.
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