Nurses Readiness and Electronic Health Records

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Introduction

An electronic health record (EHR) is a digital patient chart that contains patient’s health information utilized by healthcare providers (physicians, nurses, pharmacist, etc.) for the purpose of coordination of care and improving patient care outcomes. [1]

This article assesses the readiness of nurses in the implantation of EHR in a study conducted in Tehran University of Medical Sciences (Iran). [2]

Methods

In 2013, 284 nurses were randomly selected from teaching hospitals at Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS), for a descriptive-cross sectional study. Participants were given a questionnaire consisting of four categories:

  • Category I: Participation demographics.
  • Category 2: Computer skills (based in the International Computer Driving License program).
  • Category 3: EHR knowledge.
  • Category 4: Attitude towards EHRs.

Categories 2, 3, and 4 were then computed using descriptive statistics, the ordinal data described using frequency tables, correlation tested using the Spearman test, and the data evaluated by the Statistical Package of Social Science (SPSS) for windows.

Results

Of all the participants (85.9 percent), 77.5 percent were female and 22.5 percent male, at a mean age of 32.44, with an average work experience of 8.75 years. 98.4 percent were Bachelor degree holders and 1.6 percent had Master’s degree.

51.2 percent of the participants had knowledge of uses and applications of EHRs and 87.2 percent had positive attitude toward EHRs ability “to establish proper communication among healthcare providers” and “to prevent duplications.” However, 40.8 percent of participants held a negative attitude towards EHRs because it had a potential “to cause complexity of service delivery.”

Overall, 57.2 percent of nurses showed readiness for implementation of EHRs.

Conclusion

The readiness of healthcare providers is an important aspect off EHR implementation. From the study conducted, nurses had a high knowledge of EHR use and application, but were skeptical towards it. With education through the introduction of EHR related courses into the curriculum in nursing schools, computer and EHR training of the current practicing nurses, the readiness nurses can improve making it easier for EHR implementation.

Appendix

  • Participants level of computer skills (Range 1-5) [3]
  • Mean score of nurses’ attitude towards EHR (Range 1-5) [4]
  • Nurses Readiness on the EHR implementation (Range 1-5) [5]
  • Spearman correlation among computer skills, knowledge and attitude of Nurses [6]

My Comments

I found this article interesting because I wanted to see how other countries were dealing with the digitalization of the healthcare industry. In this article, I found it fascinating that, of the 284 participants, 98.4% were Bachelor’s degree holders and only 1.6% had a master’s degree. In other words, none of the participants had an Associate’s degree. I wonder how that would have affected the outcome. The only criticism I have, to no fault of the authors, is to have seen the effect of the study on a nurse with a lower level of education (Associate’s degree). Furthermore, this study has shown that the level of computer skills on nurses need to be enhanced. It would be of interest to increment training on computer uses and applications to the nursing education curriculum.

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References

  1. HealthIT.gov https://www.healthit.gov/providers-professionals/faqs/what-electronic-health-record-ehr
  2. Habibi-Koolaee, M., Safdari, R., and Bouraghi, H. (2015). Nurses Readiness and Electronic Health Records. Acta Informatica Medica: Journal of Academy of Medical Sciences of Bosnia and Herzegovina. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4430005/#ref1
  3. Participants level of computer skills (Range 1-5) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4430005/table/T1/
  4. Participants level of computer skills (Range 1-5) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4430005/table/T2/
  5. Nurses Readiness on the EHR implementation (range 1-5) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4430005/table/T3/
  6. Spearman correlation among computer skills, knowledge and attitude of Nurses http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4430005/table/T4/