Nurses' Informatics Competency Assessment of Health Information System Usage

Abstract

Nurses' informatics competencies are nurses' professional requirements to guarantee the quality of patient care and affect nurses' use of health information systems. The purpose of this survey was to describe nurses' perceptions of their informatics competencies regarding health information system usage. A previously tested web-based questionnaire with multiple-choice questions was sent to nurses whose e-mail address was available through three Finnish Nursing Associations (N = 58 276). A total of 3610 nurses working in Finland responded. Both descriptive and explanatory statistics were used to analyze the data. The three dependent variables “nursing documentation,” “digital environment,” and “ethics and data protection” were formulated from the data. Nurses' overall informatics competency was good. The “ethics and data protection” competency score was higher than that of “nursing documentation” or “digital environment.” Recently graduated nurses and nurses working in outpatient care, virtual hospital, examination, or operation had highest “digital environment” competency score. Health information system experience was associated with “nursing documentation.” Nurses are highly qualified health information systems users. However, the competency requirements generated by rapidly expanding digitalization have challenged nurses. It is important to increase educational programs for nurses of how to use digital devices, and how to support patients to use digital services.