The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has awarded $792,000 to the University of Louisville School of Nursing to foster nursing informatics education for UofL's undergraduate and graduate nursing students as well as practicing nurses from University of Louisville Hospital. Marcia Hern, dean of the School of Nursing and principal investigator on the project, explained the importance of the grant: "Today, nurses must be able to process a tsunami of patient data in order to make sound, clinical decisions. This grant gives us the tools we need to prepare our students for this 21st century approach to nursing care and to help our faculty and UofL practicing nurses keep their skills current."
Utilization of the grant.
The grant will be used to buy the needed equipments for the on-campus nursing simulation lab, such as a patient simulator, software, iPads and EHR simulators. Moreover, a technology specialist will be required to work on the development of the program. Nurses will be able to use an electronic health record system similar to the new simulators learned in the simulation lab lessons through monthly brown bag luncheons at the School of Nursing and at University of Louisville Hospital. Linda Goss, co-investigator, director of Infection Prevention and Control at University Hospital, said: "Nurses today use many forms of technology in their practice. Integrating the concepts of nursing informatics will enable better utilization." National consultants will assist the nursing informatics task force with planning, curriculum development and a training initiative evaluation plan. Hern noted: "This training initiative will allow the School of Nursing and UofL Hospital to recruit nursing leaders in informatics and ultimately to establish a national presence in nursing informatics education."
