Informatics in the nursing curriculum: a national survey of nursing informatics requirements in nursing curricula.

Numerous forces in the last decade have converged to form a "tipping point" demanding that nurses have the necessary knowledge and skills to practice in a technology-rich health care environment. Several Institute of Medicine (IOM) reports have highlighted the importance of health information technologies in providing safe and quality care. In particular, Health Professions Education: A Bridge to Quality (A. C. Greiner and E. Knebel, National Academies Press, 2003) recommends informatics as a core competency for all health care professionals. Federal initiatives spearheaded by the Office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology also served as an impetus for preparing nurses to work with a variety of informatics tools. The TIGER Initiative and others advocate that a nurse's portfolio needs to include knowledge and skills in computer literacy, information literacy, and informatics. In 2005, the NLN Educational Technology and Information Management Advisory Council established the Task Group on Informatics Competencies to review the informatics literature and survey faculty and administrators on the extent of preparation in nursing informatics competencies in schools of nursing. The purpose of the survey was to measure the informaticsrelated requirements of nursing curricula and ascertain how those requirements are integrated into curricula. Procedure An email with an invitation to participate in the survey was sent to all faculty and administrators in the NLN membership database, which includes LPN, all levels of RN, and graduate program faculty. Respondents answered anonymously online, but could choose to provide contact information if they wished to provide exemplars. Faculty respondents were asked the technology requirements of the school; how the curriculum currently addressed informatics; how faculty members personally integrated informatics into their courses; and the informatics tools used in the clinical setting. They were also asked to self-rate their informatics knowledge. Administrators were asked similar questions, but were also asked details about courses containing informatics content or practice. If they reported no such integration, administrators were asked to provide rationales for not including informatics in the curriculum. Demographics Respondents included 1,557 faculty and 540 administrators. All faculty were asked to indicate the one program where they had the majority of their teaching, student advisement, and leadership responsibilities. Educational levels were recategorized for reporting purposes. The largest percentage was from associate degree programs (42 percent) followed by baccalaureate programs (31 percent). Table 1 depicts the breakdown by educational level. Five hundred ninety-four respondents (38 percent) were from the South. Other regions represented were the Midwest, 404 (26 percent); North Atlantic, 377 (24 percent); and West, 167 (11 percent). Fifteen respondents (1 percent) were from US territories or did not reply. Among faculty respondents, 1,048 (67 percent) had master's degrees, and 360 (23 percent) had doctorates. Thirty-seven percent had the rank of instructor; the others were assistant professors (25 percent), associate professors (18 percent), and professors (14 percent). The remaining respondents either did not reply or had no academic rank. Ninety percent of faculty respondents were full-time employees; 79 percent had both classroom and clinical responsibilities. Fifteen percent had classroom responsibilities only; and 6 percent had clinical responsibilities only. Administrators represented ADN (47 percent), BSN (38 percent), LPN (35 percent), graduate (26 percent), and diploma (6 percent) programs. The highest proportion were from the South (38 percent); at least 25 percent were from the North Atlantic and Midwest, and 13 percent were from the West. Technology Requirements of Schools of Nursing Asked to report the technology requirements of their programs, a small percentage of faculty (15 percent) and administrators (11 percent) reported that their schools required students to own a desktop or laptop computer. …