Improving nurses' digital literacy and engagement with digital workflows through a data-driven education model.

Abstract

A digitally literate nursing workforce can support the delivery of safe, effective care and improve patient outcomes. However, digital literacy among nurses is variable. Electronic patient records (EPRs), which require the digital documentation of all patient encounters, can be used to generate data that will inform strategies to improve patient care and patient safety. Nurse leaders at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust acknowledged that although ward nurses were providing excellent patient care, there were gaps in their digital documentation of that care. To address the issue, the trust implemented a model of education informed by data analytics and aimed at developing nurses' digital skills and increasing their engagement with digital workflows. This article describes how applications extracting data from the EPR system are used to identify nurses' digital literacy training needs and how a team of digital clinical practice educators delivers targeted educational strategies to meet those needs.