2002 Volume 22 Issue 5 Pages 399-408
Nursing informatics education is now offered at many educational institutions as part of the growing trend toward higher academic credentials for nursing, which includes the establishment of colleges and graduate schools of nursing. The information-centered nursing environment is being rapidly transformed by such factors as the development of information technology and the disclosure of medical records. To meet the challenges of this rapid transformation, the educational institutions that train nursing instructors must offer continuing education after graduation. This research is based on surveys of nursing instructors now employed at hospitals into the current state of nursing informatics education, including the informatics education they received and the continuing education at their worksites. The results show that few nursing instructors have received informatics-related instruction at educational institutions training nursing instructors, or have studied nursing informatics education through continuing education. In addition, many nursing instructors recognize the necessity for nursing informatics education studies to be offered through continuing education courses in the future. We think it is necessary to establish and develop methods for the educational content of a course in nursing informatics as a specialty in the field of nursing.
