Supporting Clinical Nursing Excellence in the eHealth Era

The Nursing and ehealth project funded by the Ontario, Canada, Ministry of Health and Long Term care has as its goal to facilitate nursings' engagement in ehealth and support greater involvement of nursing in broad ehealth policy development and decision making in health care. The project, commenced 3 years ago, boasts a clear framework incorporating knowledge, visibility, synergy and accessibility; and a strategic plan for increasing the knowledge, skill, and confidence level of nurses related to ehealth.

Based on this plan a variety of innovative engagement and educational strategies have been developed involving nurses and other stakeholders. Some of the strategies include regular consistent forms of communication; an active eChampion Network; an online, interactive, foundational ehealth course for nurses; a toolkit to guide adoption of the electronic health record and related ehealth innovations; and involvement of senior administrative nurse leaders.

This presentation will provide an inclusive overview of the key elements of the project including details of the framework for the project and how it links the key strategies developed to achieve the project goals. The presentation will outline the results of a comprehensive assessment related to nurses' views of eHealth along with facilitators and barriers to eHealth adoption, and five proposed ehealth competency levels of nurses. In addition communication and awareness raising strategies developed and approaches to engaging senior nurse leaders will be profiled. Specific outcomes related to the project goals will be highlighted.