eHealth Nursing Survey Analysis and Findings
By Tanya Santo, Hon. BA
Nursing and eHealth Project Assistant
International Affairs and Best Practice Guidelines Programs
Ontario nurses had an opportunity to share their views about technology, information management, nursing and health care through the on–line Nursing and eHealth Survey which was open for two week in January 2007 and available for all Ontario RNs and RPNs and nursing students.
The on-line survey tool was designed to explore issues related to nursing´s views about and their degree of involvement in informatics in health care. The focus of the survey was on the clinical, administrative, education, research and policy domains of nursing and it reflected the four strategic requirements identified from the 2005 Nursing and eHealth Think Tank: Synergy, Visibility, Accessibility and Knowledge.
Janet Rush, RN and Consultant, analyzed the survey and indicated that respondents were, on average, mid to late career female nurses, half of whom were working in direct clinical care roles with representation from others in administration, education, informatics, policy and research positions. Five percent of respondents described their role as health informatican. The majority had a BSN or higher, and were involved with a variety of professional organizations including RNAO and RNAO interest groups.
Some key findings from the survey are bulleted below:
- While the majority of nurses expressed comfort with computers, there is still a large cohort of nurse who are not comfortable with computers, many of whom are in the late career stage;
Thank all nurses who took the time to fill out the online nursing survey!
- Nurses feel they have a role in teaching and supporting nurses and other members of the health care team in adopting informatics in the workplace; this is particularly true for those with more education and experience;
- Accessibility is seen as the most important factor in nursing and informatics by the vast majority of respondents. Accessibility refers to ready availability of a working computer;
- Technology support for staff is not necessarily available on a 24/7 basis;
- There are still numerous time factors involved with computer use that include additional administrative work, technology glitches and waiting for support, double system entries, because the entire service is not on using technology for the same technology or application;
- There appeared to be a better support (ie: available computers) and systems for administrators than for clinical staff;
- The majority of respondents indicated that their workload has increased significantly or somewhat due to increased computer use;
- The majority of respondents indicated their work stress had increased significantly or somewhat due to computer use;
- The most frequently mentioned topics for an eHealth course included evidence based practice, measuring clinical outcomes and effectiveness and efficiency indicating the strong desire of nurses to connect eHealth to patient care and their work practices;
- Many useful suggestions were made as to how to implement eHealth in the workplace, that reinforce the need for full participation of nurses, availability of coaches and champions, being realistic and practical, and time for assimilation;
- There is limited access to computers in most community nursing settings;
- There is very low use of computers/systems for recruitment and retention tracking and other HR metrics;
- Very few nursing curricula have an informatics option or core course; and
- Informatics applications in research support quantitative methods more than qualitative.
The results of the survey reinforce the focus of the Nursing and eHealth Project. We also found that the results support the need to further build on certain eHealth project activities and create new and exciting components particularly associated with dissemination of the foundational education program, expanding the eHealth Champion program, creating other support for nurses to assist in eHealth adoption, and supporting eHealth education and awareness for nurses in all roles.
The Nursing and eHealth would like to take this opportunity to thank all nurses who took the time to fill out the online nursing survey. Your interest in and commitment to this most important initiative is very much appreciated and has been invaluable to further shape the nursing and eHealth project.