Staff Nurses' Willingness toward UsingElectronic Patient Record InNursing Documentation

Abstract

Nursing documentation is an important communication tool amongst caregivers and other healthcare professionals. It enables nursing managers to assess whether care provided by individual caregivers was professional, safe and competent. Paper-based nursing documentation is time consuming and records are often illegible, missing or incorrect, which may lead to medical errors. Conversely, an electronic patient record (EPR) is a secure and private electronic lifetime record of an individual’s key health history and care within the health system. The majority of the end-users for the EPRs are nurses. Therefore, it is in high demand to prepare nursing professional students who are willing to be capable and knowledgeable of EPRs, especially at the undergraduate level. This study aim was to assess staff nurses' willingness toward using Electronic Patient Record (EPR) in nursing documentation. This descriptive study was conducted in the Intensive Care Units (ICUs) at Zagazig University Hospitals. It included all 150 staff nurses working in the setting. A self-administrated questionnaire was used for data collection. It consisted of parts covering the personal characteristics of the staff nurses, experience with computer and willingness to use, self-reported knowledge and skills with computer, in addition to a scale for their attitude toward using EPRs. The tool was tested for face and content validity by a panel of experts in the field. It was pilot-tested for reliability of the attitude scale, which proved to be high. The data collection was from November 2014 to January 2015. The main study findings were as follows.  Approximately one-third of the staff nurses (36.0%) were less than 25 years, with a majority of female (97.3%), with diploma (84.7%).  Sixty percent had experience with computer, but only 7.3% have previously used it at work; 88.7% expressed their need and willingness to attend training in computer.  Only 44.7% of the staff nurses had satisfactory knowledge about computer, and 29.3% had reported adequate skills.  More than three-fourth of the staff nurses were having positive attitudes towards all aspects of computer use; however, only 38% had positive attitude towards the obstacles to use EPR.  In total, 73.3% of the staff nurses had positive attitudes towards computer, internet and EPR.  The percentages of staff nurses having satisfactory knowledge were significantly higher in emergency and chest ICUs, those aged less than 25 years, males, unmarried, and with less than ten years of total and current experience.  The percentages of staff nurses having satisfactory knowledge were significantly higher among those with previous experience with computer, those who need training in EPR, and are willing to attend training in EPR and to use it.  Significantly more staff nurses had adequate reported computer skills among those aged between 25 and less than 35 years, males, unmarried, and with less than 20 years of total and current experience.  The percentages of staff nurses having adequate reported computer skills were significantly higher among those with previous experience with computer, those who need training in EPR, and are willing to attend training in EPR and to use it.  The staff nurses aged less than 35 years, and with less than 20 years of total and current experience were having significantly higher percentages of positive attitude.  Significantly more staff nurses having positive attitudes were revealed among those who need training in computer and in EPR, and are willing to attend training in EPR and to use it.  The percentages of staff nurse willing to use computer were significantly higher among those with less than 20 years of total and current experience, and those who need training in computer and in EPR, and are willing to attend such training.  The percentage of staff nurses with satisfactory knowledge was higher among those with adequate reported computer skills.  Significantly more staff nurses having adequate reported skills were among those with positive attitudes.