Assessing Nursing Informatics Competencies Among Nurses in Eastern Cluster Hospitals: A Study on Skills and Knowledge in the Digital Healthcare Realm

Nursing informatics is a fast-growing field that blends patient
care and technology. (Alshammari, 2017) Nursing informatics competencies are
required for nurses to function safely in a health care context (Ball, Douglas,
Hinton-Walker, DuLong, Gugerty, Hannah, and Troseth (2011). One of the numerous
competences required of nurses to compete worldwide is the incorporation of
advances in technology into their daily practice. Such consideration improves
patient care and safety (Havens, Vasey, Gittell, & Lin, 2010; Dingley,
Daugherty, Derieg, & Persing, 2008). Continuing education focusing on nursing
informatics is critical within a safety framework and improves patient
outcomes. Indeed, the healthcare workers processing these critical
learning capabilities and their states of mind when utilizing them to deliver safe patient care, which can reduce medical errors (Boykins, 2014).
Without a doubt, expertise in nursing informatics allows nurses to spend more
time at their patients’ bedsides (Chang, Poynton, Gassert, & Staggers,
2011). As a result, expertise in nursing informatics can provide the same level of understanding regarding informatics application (Choi & Bakken, 2013).

Information and communication technologies ‘ICT’ have become ubiquitous in the healthcare system, and because nurses make up most of the health-care workforce, they must be proficient in nursing informatics ‘NI’, which includes utilizing computers, accessing as well as evaluating digital data, and having adequate information management skills. (Webster, 2020; WHO, 2019; Ibrahim et al., 2019; Sapci, Sapci, 2017; Gole et al., 2017; WHO, 2016). The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN, 2021) recently issued the fundamental competencies for professional education, which begin with admission to nursing schools. Baccalaureate-level nurses must be proficient in both patient-care technology and information-management systems.

Furthermore, the study by Farzandipour et al. (2021) showed that professional obligations of nurses’ demand nursing students’ awareness of informatics competencies. As a result, baccalaureate-nursing students must have the necessary NI knowledge, abilities, and attitudes to continue through their educational program and be prepared for their professional roles as nurses.

(Mohamad L., 2021). In March 2018, the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties (SCFHS) invited key health informatics educators and researchers to take part in a national collaboration that, over an eight-month period, produced the first competency framework for Health Informatics professionals in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Health Informatics Competency Framework (SHICF) can be used to define the field of health informatics in the country. The health informatics field will continue to evolve, and the SCFHS should continually review the proposed competency framework to develop in the future a context-based HI competency framework that would make HI professionals competitive, competent, and dependable in their efforts to improve the overall quality of healthcare in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. (Almalki et al., 2019)