The integration of Information and Communication Technology into nursing practice

We are planning to launch again our survey to Physicians, Nurses and Pharmacists with the collaboration of their Professional Associations of Barcelona. Therefore, we are redesigning the questionnaires and checking our multivariate analysis. Following the published paper entitled “The integration of Information and Communication Technology into medical practice”, we have send to a peer-review journal another paper focused on Nurses. Below you can find the main figures:

Table 5 revealed that cluster one (4.58%) is composed of those nurses who make greater use of ICT and the Internet for access to clinical and scientific information. The nurses within this cluster are also more likely to use ICT as a resource for publishing and international contact on national and international information. This first profile represents those nurses who place high emphasis on ICT in that it forms an integral part of their practice. This group is thus referred to as representing ‘Integrated nurses’. In other words, ICT and the Internet has become an important tool to be used in the delivery of care for the ‘integrated nurse’.

Cluster two (95.42%) is characterised by a distinctive set of features. The second profile represents those nurses who place less emphasis on ICT so that it is used to support their daily work only when required. This group are consequently labelled ‘Non-integrated nurses’.

Statistical analysis of the relationship between the two profiles (see Table 6 of the presentation) revealed that ‘Integrated nurses’ are more likely than ‘Non-integrated nurses’ to carry out research activities, to consider the Internet is ‘very useful’ to their nursing practice and to recommend that their patients use online health information. ‘Non-integrated nurses’ are more likely than ‘integrated nurses’ to be only engaged in delivering nursing care and to believe that patients use of online information will have little impact on their treatment their or understanding of their condition.

Finally, it was found that all the variables included have a significance explanatory power regarding the integration of ICT within nursing practice (see Table 7). It was observed that an ’emphasis on international information’, performance ‘research activities’ and ‘the perception that health information available on the Internet’ was relevant to nursing played a positive and significance role in the probability of being an ‘Integrated nurse’.

Acknowledgements

The research reported is part of a broad study supported by Departament de Salut de la Generalitat de Catalunya (Catalonia Health Department) and directed by Prof. Manuel Castells. Survey launched is a result of a collaboration between the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute at Open University of Catalonia and the Nurses Association of Barcelona (Col·legi Oficial de Infermeres de Barcelona).