Informatics in Nursing Education: What Do We Do Next?

Information and communication technologies (ICT’s)continue to grow and affect how health care professional’s work. The utilization of ICT’s in nursing practice is associated with increased efficiency, safety, and quality in the delivery of patient care(Canadian Nursing Informatics Association-Canadian Nurses Association, 2017).Nursing informatics has emerged to support the professions’ involvement in designing, implementing and evaluating the adoption of ICT’s, necessitating the integration of informatics content into nursing education curriculums (Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing, 2015; Canadian Nurses Association, 2006; Canadian Nurses Association, 2015; Canadian Nursing Informatics Association-Canadian Nurses Association, 2017).The purpose of this paper was to explore the current literature and identify existing resources related to the development and assessment of nursing informatics competencies. A review of the current literature was undertaken to answer the question: What evidence-based resources are available to nurse educators to assess the development of nursing informatics competencies? The current literature revealed that nurse educators have a variety of validated competency frameworks and assessment tools at their fingertips to support development of these skills in 2/15 students. This article will present the findings of the evidence review and provide recommendations on competency assessment tools for use by nursing educators in the Canadian context.