In an iHealthBeat Special Report, officials from the National League for Nursing, Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society and the University of Minnesota discuss the league's recent position statement with 23 recommendations for improving health care IT training for nurses.
The Special Report includes comments from:
- Connie Delaney, dean of the School of Nursing at the University of Minnesota;
- Beverly Malone, CEO of the National League for Nursing; and
- Joyce Sensmeier, nursing informaticist at HIMSS.
The National League for Nursing says schools and colleges need to incorporate more IT training into their curricula. It's not enough just to train nurses in basic computer skills, nurses also need to be proficient in how health care IT works and be able to use the technology to its best advantage, the league contends.
"When you're talking nursing informatics, you're talking about planning patient care," Malone said. "It's integrated into actually the delivery of services, the delivery of patient care and the science of nursing -- that whole idea of evidence-based care," Malone added (Kennedy,
iHealthBeat, 6/23).