Study: Nurses Not Trained for IT

Stacy Lawrence Avatar

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With health care organizations investing millions into IT, it may seem a little strange to find that most nurses receive little or no IT training.

But that’s exactly the result of one of the most comprehensive surveys to date about nurses and their IT work environment, conducted by health IT provider CDW Healthcare.

One of the most surprising findings was that one-quarter indicated they had received no IT training on the job over the last year, while another 56 percent said they had gotten only between one and eight hours of IT training.

Despite an aging population—the median age for a nurse in the United States is into the 50s and there is a chronic shortage of almost one-quarter of a million nurses—nurses are largely interested in learning about IT.

When asked what would have the greatest impact on improving their use of IT in their job, 55 percent responded that more training would help.

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