The Health Information Technology Competencies Tool: Does It Translate for Nursing Informatics in the United States?

Information technology use in healthcare delivery mandates a prepared workforce. The initial Health Information Technology Competencies tool resulted from a 2-year transatlantic effort by experts from the US and European Union to identify approaches to develop skills and knowledge needed by healthcare workers. It was determined that competencies must be identified before strategies are established, resulting in a searchable database of more than 1000 competencies representing five domains, five skill levels, and more than 250 roles. Health Information Technology Competencies is available at no cost and supports role- or competency-based queries. Health Information Technology Competencies developers suggest its use for curriculum planning, job descriptions, and professional development.The Chamberlain College of Nursing informatics research team examined Health Information Technology Competencies for its possible application to our research and our curricular development, comparing it originally with the TIGER-based Assessment of Nursing Informatics Competencies and Nursing Informatics Competency Assessment of Level 3 and Level 4 tools, which examine informatics competencies at four levels of nursing practice. Additional analysis involved the 2015 Nursing Informatics: Scope and Standards of Practice. Informatics is a Health Information Technology Competencies domain, so clear delineation of nursing-informatics competencies was expected. Researchers found TIGER-based Assessment of Nursing Informatics Competencies and Nursing Informatics Competency Assessment of Level 3 and Level 4 differed from Health Information Technology Competencies 2016 in focus, definitions, ascribed competencies, and defined levels of expertise. When Health Information Technology Competencies 2017 was compared against the nursing informatics scope and standards, researchers found an increase in the number of informatics competencies but not to a significant degree. This is not surprising, given that Health Information Technology Competencies includes all healthcare workers, while the TIGER-based Assessment of Nursing Informatics Competencies and Nursing Informatics Competency Assessment of Level 3 and Level 4 tools and the American Nurses Association Nursing Informatics: Scope and Standards of Practice are nurse specific. No clear cross mapping across these tools and the standards of nursing informatics practice exists. Further examination and review are needed to translate Health Information Technology Competencies as a viable tool for nursing informatics use in the US.

Competency Skills Assessment: Successes and Areas for Improvement Identified During Collaboration Between Informaticists and a National Organization.

The Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) approached the Nursing Informatics Research Team (NIRT) with a request to collaborate and conduct a competency assessment for their organization. An online tool was developed to determine current technology in perioperative settings. This presentation shares the process used to conduct research that led to a method for assessing perioperative nurses' competencies skills in their practice as well as identified gaps in curricula that faculty could address. Both successes and areas for improvement are detailed. The outcome of the process demonstrated a need to understand what skills are being assessed as AORN did not know what technology existed or how existing equipment was being used.

Project Management: Essential Skill of Nurse Informaticists.

With the evolution of nursing informatics (NI), the list of skills has advanced from the original definition that included 21 competencies to 168 basic competencies identified in the TIGER-based Assessment of Nursing Informatics Competencies (TANIC) and 178 advanced skills in the Nursing Informatics Competency Assessment (NICA) L3/L4 developed by Chamberlain College of Nursing, Nursing Informatics Research Team (NIRT). Of these competencies, project management is one of the most important essentials identified since it impacts all areas of NI skills and provides an organizing framework for processes and projects including skills such as design, planning, implementation, follow-up and evaluation. Examples of job roles that specifically require project management skills as an essential part of the NI functions include management, administration, leadership, faculty, graduate level master's and doctorate practicum courses. But first, better understanding of the NI essential skills is vital before adequate education and training programs can be developed.

Operationalizing the TANIC and NICA-L3/L4 Tools to Improve Informatics Competencies.

Two tools were developed for nurses to self-assess different levels of informatics competencies. The TANIC is used for all nurses to self-assess; the NICA-L3/L4 is a tool for the informatics nurse specialist (INS) to self-assess skill levels. There are 167 informatics items in the TANIC and 178 advanced informatics items in the NICA-L3/L4. These tools were piloted; the results presented here. Based on the evaluation, the tools have been integrated into informatics courses at the BSN and MSN programs at Chamberlain College of Nursing, and presented in two AACN webinars and other national conferences. Numerous requests have been honored to provide the tools for other schools of nursing to use in their courses, including DNP programs. Other requests include those from CNIOs and managers to include in their job descriptions for informatics nurses.

Technology in the OR: AORN Members' Perceptions of the Effects on Workflow Efficiency and Quality Patient Care.

This collaborative study sought to describe technology used by AORN members at work, inclusive of radio-frequency identification or barcode scanning (RFID), data collection tools (DATA), workflow or dashboard management tools (DASHBOARD), and environmental services/room decontamination technologies (ENVIRON), and to identify the perceived effects of each technology on workflow efficiency (WFE) and quality patient care (QPC). The 462 respondents to the AORN Technology in the OR survey reported use of technology (USE) in all categories. Eleven of 17 RFID items had a strong positive correlation between the designated USE item and the perceived effect on WFE and QPC. Five of the most-used technology items were found in the DATA category. Two of the five related to Intraoperative Nursing Documentation and the use of the Perioperative Nursing Data Set. The other three related to Imaging Integration for Radiology Equipment, Video Camera Systems, and Fiber-optic Systems. All three elements explored in the DASHBOARD category (ie, Patient Update, OR Case, OR Efficiency) demonstrated approximately 50% or greater perceived effectiveness in WFE and QPC. There was a low reported use of ENVIRON technologies, resulting in limited WFE and QPC data for this category.