Day by Day

There’s no turning back – health care has become digitised and we should do more than keep up! Health informatics skills are no longer something that we can learn on the job or hope we can retire before being forced to use computers in our work. It’s here to stay and we can’t avoid using it if we want to excel in our work as nurses. Universities everywhere run courses in health informatics to build competency, but I think we should be building competency as part of the undergraduate programmes that people complete to become nurses. How do we achieve that?

I am a member of the TIGER (Technology Informatics Guiding Education Reform) International Committee, and along with Dr Michelle Honey, we represent New Zealand nurses. TIGER began as a grassroots initiative in 2006 within the nursing community; today, TIGER is focused on education reform and fostering global interprofessional development with an interdisplinary approach. The spirit of TIGER is to contribute to a learning health system that maximizes the integration of competencies, technology, and informatics into seamless practice, education, and research resource development.  In 2015, the TIGER International Committee, with representation from 21 countries, began comprehensive activities to compile recommended core international informatics competencies reflective of many countries, scientific societies, and research projects known as the TIGER International Competency Synthesis Project. Michelle and I developed a response to the TIGER nurse informatics competencies in the New Zealand context, specifically for newly qualified nurses. What health informatics competencies should newly qualified nurses have?

TIGER is creating a collection of webinar presentations showcasing country specific case studies compiled from Finland, Germany (inclusive of Austria and Switzerland), Ireland, New Zealand, the Philippines, and Portugal within their Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). Michelle and I recorded our New Zealand case study response and the webinar is now available to you to access on demand. Have a listen and let us know what you think.

Health Informatics Competencies in New Zealand: A Review Play recording (1 hr 1 min 15 sec)

Click here to learn more about the project and access country specific case studies.