A Review of Clinical Informatics Competencies in Nursing to Inform Best Practices in Education and Nurse Faculty Development.
The aim of this literature review was to determine the state of the science related to clinical informatics competencies of registered nurses and to determine best practices in educational strategies for both nursing students and faculty. Continued emphasis on the provision of evidence-based patient care has implications for requisite informatics-focused competencies to be threaded throughout all levels of nursing educational programs. Whittemore and Knalf's five-step integrative review process guided this research. An extensive search yielded 69 publications for critical appraisal. Results suggest nursing educational programs do not adhere to standardized criteria for teaching nursing informatics competencies. Another identified literature gap was the scarcity of research related to informatics training requirements for nurse educators. Findings support the need for continued research to provide clear direction about the expected clinical informatics competencies of graduate nurses and what training faculty need to facilitate student learning.