Intergration or information technology in nursing simulation training

The healthcare workforce is increasingly moving towards the global adoption of computer applications and technology for effective and efficient delivery of healthcare services. This emphasizes the need to integrate the use of information technology especially the electronic medical records (EMR) into the learning process of the health professions student, thereby exposing them to the use of EMR at each level of their studies; therefore, the medical students would be familiar with and better prepared for the use of the complex technologies for effective medical operations as they enter the workforce. Despite the growing importance of EMR, health professions students in medical schools in the US have been given little or no hands-on training on electronic medical records during their course of training. Nova Southeastern University (NSU) in Florida USA has six healthcare professions colleges, including medicine, nursing, dentistry, pharmacy, and other allied health professionals; and has been an ideal ground for collaborative projects in teaching and training. This NSU-Nursing Simulation Lab EMR project, with an initial focus on the nursing students, was a collaborative effort between the graduate students in the Medical Informatics Program and Nursing Program at NSU. As a practicum requirement, the medical informatics graduate students assessed the needs of the nursing simulation laboratory for the electronic medical records; based on the analysis, the graduate students developed and implemented the customized EMR for the nursing students and faculty training. The platforms of Microsoft Access, SQL statements and Visual Basic Application language were used to provide a practical and interactive electronic medical record for the nursing simulation experience. A functional and secure EMR was developed and implemented in the NSU nursing simulation laboratory, and it is being integrated as a part of daily training of using current information technology for the nurses in training at NSU now. Both medical informatics graduate students and the nursing students have gained practically useful hands-on experience through this innovative project. Healthcare professions students' competency and comfort levels of using information technology when they enter the workforce will be further investigated to demonstrate the significance of this innovation.