eHealth Champions: a Successful Strategy to Maximize Nursing's Adoption of eHealth for Quality Patient Care

As part of the Nursing and eHealth Project, funded by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care, the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario (RNAO), developed a web enabled eHealth Champion Program. This program was modeled after the highly successful RNAO Best Practice Guideline Champion Program, now widely utilized in Ontario to support successful implementation of evidence based practice. The goal of the eHealth Champion Program is to raise awareness among nurses about eHealth and its link to quality patient care and the nursing role, and to support nurses in eHealth adoption across all health care sectors.

The eHealth Champion Program consists of close to 200 nurses from all sectors and across all regions of the province of Ontario, and continues to grow. Champions are promoted by their organizations to attend workshops to prepare them with eHealth knowledge, and change strategies and processes to assist with eHealth adoption among nurses. Ongoing network meetings of Champions are held to maintain communication linkages, share successes and challenges, and continue knowledge development. The Nursing eHealth Champions are also a key resource to contribute to eHealth content and policy development that affects nurses and patients.

This presentation will focus on the recruitment and preparation of eHealth Champions, an outline of the key components of the champion preparation workshop, a profile of the eHealth champion cohort to date, and early outcomes of this strategy to support eHealth adoption among nurses. Key lessons learned related to development and use of this strategy will also be highlighted.