Paper
Sunday, November 4, 2007

155
This presentation is part of : Innovations in Informatics
Restructuring Nursing Education to Produce Informatics Proficient Graduates
Patricia Abbott, PhD, RN, FAAN, FACMI1, Krysia W. Hudson, MS1, Jim Cato, RN, CRNA, MSH, MSN2, Michelle R. Troseth, RN, MSN3, Diane A. Aschenbrenner, MS1, Steve Klapper, BA1, and Elizabeth T. Jordan, DNSc, RNC4. (1) School of Nursing, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA, (2) Executive, Eclipsys Corporation, Boca Raton, FL, USA, (3) Executive Vice President, CPM Resource Center, Grand Rapids, MI, USA, (4) Maternal Child, Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, Baltimore, MD, USA
Learning Objective #1: articulate the 5 aims of the IOM “Preparing the Workforce” report
Learning Objective #2: relate aims of IOM “Preparing the Workforce” report to informatics competencies that must be part of nursing curriculums.
The 2003 IOM report “Crossing the Quality Chasm” specifically addresses the failure of the healthcare industry and the educational systems that produce the practitioners of the future stating that “the nation’s health care delivery system has fallen far short in its ability to translate knowledge into practice and to apply new technology safely and appropriately.” Further, the point is made that in order to reverse this trend, it is necessary to “restructure clinical education to be consistent with the principles of the 21st-century health system throughout the continuum of undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education for medical, nursing, and other professional training programs.”

As the healthcare environment continues to change at unprecedented rates, concomitant changes in educational delivery are required.  As noted in the IOM Chasm report “…the importance of adequately preparing the workforce to make a smooth transition into a thoroughly revamped health care system cannot be underestimated.” In the increasingly informatics-laced world of healthcare, the need for informatics competency in all nurses has reached the critical stage.  The new age of healthcare is upon us – requiring that prepare the next generation to excel in a world far different than the one in which we were trained.

Nursing education restructuring is fraught with challenges, however.  Aging faculty, declining resources, increasing enrollments, and new technology combine to increase the pressure on schools of nursing. The expectations of nursing employers are also rapidly expanding; nursing graduates are expected to emerge from programs with competencies that many of us are struggling to master ourselves. These pressures, while difficult, cannot be ignored.

The John Hopkins University SON is redesigning curricula to prepare nurses for the informatics-laden environments of the future and is working to enhance public-private partnerships to help achieve this aim.  The challenges and the rewards of this effort will be discussed.

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See more of The 39th Biennial Convention (November 3 -- 7, 2007)