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Abstract

Registered nurses (RN) are increasingly dependent on health information technology which include electronic healthcare records (EHR)s, point of care devices, mobile computing devices (smartphones, tablets, etc.) and telehealth. This increased use drives the need for the RNs to be knowledgeable and competent in informatics. The University of Southern Indiana BSN Completion (RN-BSN) program revised their curriculum in 2017 to include the requirement of a Nursing Informatics course. This class was designed to be an introduction to informatics with the focus on learning and applying concepts of information management, standardized terminology and language, electronic health records, meaningful use, safety, and security, etc. In 2016, the Graduate Nursing program redesigned its Nursing Informatics class. This course focuses on conceptual foundations for understanding health care informatics. Elements addressed include healthcare computing, information management, data acquisition, and data utilization. Managing organizational change, information security, social and ethical issues in health care systems, and the effects of informatics on the practitioner and consumer are studied. Do registered nurses completing a Nursing Informatics course attain increased informatics competencies upon completion of the course? How does completing a nursing informatics course increase the RNs informatics competencies? Faculty went to the literature to discover which tools were available to measure nursing informatic competencies. Instruments to measure student perception of informatics competencies include Technology Informatics Guiding Educational Reform (TIGER) based Assessment of Nursing Informatics Competencies (TANIC), Self-Assessment of Nursing Informatics Competencies Scale (SANICS), and Nursing Informatics Competency Assessment Tool (NICAT). The Self-Assessment of Informatics Competency Scale for Health Professionals (SAICS) a tool that was a revision of the SANICS tool by Yoon et al. (2015) was selected for use. Permission to use the SAICS was obtained by the author. IRB approval was also obtained. Pretest was done at the beginning of the course and posttest done at completion. The courses ran as previously designed and with the course assignment unchanged. Both course’ goals include students having an increase in knowledge and application of informatics, yet evaluation of these goals has not been done. Student perceived growth in their informatics competencies based on the comparison of pre- and post-test scores. Nursing Education is in the transition towards competency-based education, the Self- Assessment of Informatics Competency Scale for Health Professionals Survey could be one method to measure competency within nursing informatics.

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