Does Work Experience Using Technology for College and University Nursing Students Influence the Nursing Informatics Competency Scores by the End of the 4th Year Program for One School in the Province of Ontario, Canada? A Cross-Sectional Design

Abstract

The use of Information Technology (IT) in healthcare organizations is omnipresent. The nursing curriculum needs to include IT in order to prepare nursing students to acquire Nursing Informatics (NI) competencies before entering the workplace. The literature review suggests that pre-licensure nurses are ill prepared to enter the workforce because they lack some of the essential computer skills that employers are seeking when hiring new graduates (Fetter, 2009a; Gassert, 2008; Ornes & Gassert, 2007). The lack of defined competencies in NI is a worldwide problem (Chang, 2007; Fetter, 2009b; Staggers, Gassert, & Curran, 2001; Ragneskog & Gerdner, 2006). This thesis will examine two questions: 1) Do nursing students increase their NI competency scores progressively in their school program from year 1 to 4? 2) Do nursing students with work experience requiring the use of technology outside of the curriculum get higher scores for NI competencies than those without by the end of 4th year? A questionnaire was given to 176 nursing students asking them to rate their computer use and computer knowledge. The results were consistent for both independent variables of year of study and experience with technology in the work setting. There is no interaction present between variables; they each influence individually the total score for NI competencies for nursing students. The results show NI competencies progressively increasing over the four academic years. The nursing students scored higher still when they had technology experience in any work field on NI competencies. The combination of academic and work experience that uses IT provides nursing students with more opportunities to practice and assimilate their NI competencies before graduation.