Health Information Technology Scholars Program: From Implementation to Outcomes.

AIM: This article reports the development, implementation, and outcomes of the Health Information Technology Scholars (HITS) program. BACKGROUND: HITS is one of nine faculty development collaborative projects funded by the Health Resource Service Administration to integrate information and other technologies in nursing education and practice. METHOD: In addition to evaluating the content and context of the program, the evaluation includes descriptive statistics, goal attainment scaling, diffusion of innovation index, utilization of knowledge survey, and exemplars from scholars. RESULTS: The HITS program developed 265 faculty across 132 nursing programs in 43 states over 5 years. HITS scholars impacted more than 59,000 students and 9,000 other faculty. These technology leaders have numerous presentations, publications, and awards. CONCLUSION: Success of the HITS program is attributed to the strength of the faculty development collaborative partnership, the applicant selection process, and the program design.

Integrating an Academic Electronic Health Record: Challenges and Success Strategies.

Technology is increasing the complexity in the role of today's nurse. Healthcare organizations are integrating more health information technologies and relying on the electronic health record for data collection, communication, and decision making. Nursing faculty need to prepare graduates for this environment and incorporate an academic electronic health record into a nursing curriculum to meet student-program outcomes. Although the need exists for student preparation, some nursing programs are struggling with implementation, whereas others have been successful. To better understand these complexities, this project was intended to identify current challenges and success strategies of effective academic electronic health record integration into nursing curricula. Using Rogers' 1962 Diffusion of Innovation theory as a framework for technology adoption, a descriptive survey design was used to gain insights from deans and program directors of nursing schools involved with the national Health Informatics & Technology Scholars faculty development program or Cerner's Academic Education Solution Consortium, working to integrate an academic electronic health record in their respective nursing schools. The participants' experiences highlighted approaches used by these schools to integrate these technologies. Data from this project provide nursing education with effective strategies and potential challenges that should be addressed for successful academic electronic health record integration.

Information technologies and the transformation of nursing education.

Higher education is facing new challenges with the emergence of the Internet and other information and communication technologies. The call for the transformation of higher education is imperative. This article describes the transformation of higher education and its impact on nursing education. Nursing education, considered by many a pioneer in the use of educational technologies, still faces 3 major challenges. The first challenge is incorporation of the Institute of Medicine's recommendation of 5 core competencies for all health professionals. The second challenge focuses on the preparation of nurses to practice in informatics-intensive healthcare environments. The last challenge is the use of emerging technologies, such as Web 2.0 tools, that will help to bridge the gap between the next generation and faculty in nursing schools. Nurse educators need to understand and use the power of technologies to prepare the next generation of nurses.

Teaching undergraduate nursing students critical thinking: An innovative informatics strategy.

Simulated e-Health Delivery System (SEEDS) uses a clinical information system (CIS) to teach students how to process data from virtual patient case studies and work with information technology. SEEDS was developed in response to the Institute of Medicine recommendation that students be taught about information systems in order to improve quality patient care and reduce errors. Curriculum implications, implementation of the system, and technology challenges are discussed.

A nurse educator teaching with technologies course: more than teaching on the web.

This article describes a Web-based "teaching with technology" course that is part of the online Nurse Educator Certificate at University of Kansas (Journal of Professional Nursing . 2003;19:347-353). Challenges and strategies in developing and implementing the course, first in a Web-enhanced format and then in a Web-based format, are presented. Selected online activities and assignments are shared. Evaluative comments from students are included in this article and indicate that the course helps new educators focus on thoughtful and appropriate selection of how and where technology should be integrated to meet educational goals.

Best practices in Web-based courses: generational differences across undergraduate and graduate nursing students.

The demand for online courses is greatly increasing across all levels of the curriculum in higher education. With this change in teaching and learning strategies comes the need for quality control to determine best practices in online learning communities. This study examines the differences in student perceptions of the use of technology, educational practices, and outcomes between undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in Web-based courses. The multisite study uses the benchmarking process and the Flashlight Program Evaluating Educational Uses of the Web in Nursing survey instrument to study best practices and examine generational differences between the two groups of students. The outcomes of the study establish benchmarks for quality improvement in online learning. The results support the educational model for online learning and postulates about generational differences for future study.

The Role of Nurses in Primary Care: Managing Alcohol-Abusing Patients.

Nurses work on the front lines of primary health care delivery in many settings. The unique characteristics of nursing care put nurses in an excellent position to identify, assess, counsel, and monitor clients with alcohol problems.

Standardized patient experiences: evaluation of clinical performance and nurse practitioner student satisfaction.

Standardized Patients (people trained to accurately portray a specific patient) have been widely used by medical schools and, to a lesser degree, by schools of nursing as a method for evaluating clinical performance. These trained patients provide a viable method for teaching and evaluating nurse practitioner students as they progress through their educational programs toward clinical competency. Evaluation using Standardized Patient Experiences provides objective and valid information regarding students' synthesis of didactic information and abilities to apply knowledge in the clinical setting. The purpose of this article is to describe the implementation of Standardized Patient Experiences across a curriculum for family nurse practitioner and adult geriatric nurse practitioner students. Students evaluated the experiences throughout the curriculum and overwhelmingly found them to be realistic, challenging, and of value to their programs of study.

An academic-business partnership for advancing clinical informatics.

A jointly funded partnership between the school of nursing at a large midwestern university and a premier health care information technology supplier represents a pioneering event for education and for the health care information technology industry. The impetus for this partnership arose from Institute of Medicine reports published in late 1999 and early 2001 addressing the quality, error, and waste in the health care system in the United States. The Simulated E-hEalth Delivery System (SEEDS) provides opportunities based on best practices in education to learn and practice clinical skills in a state-of-the-art environment using a live-production, clinical information system designed for care delivery. A pilot project that began with a small cohort of baccalaureate nursing students has been implemented and extended. SEEDS will also be extended to other health professional programs.

The effect of simulation on clinical performance: a junior nursing student clinical comparison study.

INTRODUCTION: Patient simulation has been used to augment the traditional clinical model, but its value is unclear. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of a theory-driven pediatric simulation curriculum on nursing students' clinical performance. METHODS: The convenience sample included 116 junior nursing students enrolled in a pediatric course. Using a staggered timing model, students attended simulation instead of clinical for 2 weeks (25%) of an 8-week semester. The students spent the same amount of time in simulation as in clinical (12 hours per week). Student clinical performance was assessed using a Likert-style tool at 2-week intervals by the clinical faculty. Scores of students who attended simulation in the first 2 weeks were compared with students who had not yet attended simulation. Data were analyzed using repeated measure analysis with the mixed model, and covariate effects were considered. A Compound Symmetry covariance model was used to control the correlation between weeks within each subject. Statistical significance was determined at the 5% level. RESULTS: Faculty rated students with patient simulation experience higher than those who had not yet attended simulation (mean ± standard error: 1.74 ± 0.75, P = 0.02). On item-level analysis, therapeutic skills were positively impacted by simulation (P = 0.02). CONCLUSIONS: Time in simulation enhanced clinical performance, as simulation students achieved higher scores more quickly than those without simulation and maintained high performance levels. These findings suggest patient simulation is a valuable addition to augment the apprenticeship model.

Class size as related to the use of technology, educational practices, and outcomes in Web-based nursing courses.

With the expanding numbers of nursing students enrolled in Web-based courses and the shortage of faculty, class sizes are increasing. This exploratory descriptive study examined class size in relation to the use of technology and to particular educational practices and outcomes. The sample consisted of undergraduate (n = 265) and graduate (n = 863) students enrolled in fully Web-based nursing courses. The Evaluating Educational Uses of Web-based Courses in Nursing survey (Billings, D., Connors, H., Skiba, D. (2001). Benchmarking best practices in Web-based nursing courses. Advances in Nursing Science, 23, 41--52) and the Social Presence Scale (Gunawardena, C. N., Zittle, F. J. (1997). Social presence as a predictor of satisfaction within a computer-mediated conferencing environment. The American Journal of Distance Education, 11, 9-26.) were used to gather data about the study variables. Class sizes were defined as very small (1 to 10 students), small (11 to 20 students), medium (21 to 30 students), large (31 to 40 students), and very large (41 students and above). Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. There were significant differences by class size in students' perceptions of active participation in learning, student-faculty interaction, peer interaction, and connectedness. Some differences by class size between undergraduate and graduate students were also found, and these require further study.

HIT plants SEEDS in healthcare education.

By incorporating a clinical information system in the education curriculum as a teaching platform, the University of Kansas School of Nursing teaches nurses and other health professional students how to assess, plan, document and manage care in an electronic medium that develops healthcare informatics competencies. The outcomes of this integrated technology curriculum brings hope for transforming health professional education for 21st century practice and graduating a workforce with the leadership and competencies for improving quality and safety in patient care. It results in IT savvy healthcare providers who will cross the quality chasm.