Abstract
The field of nursing is presently subject to keen changes and these processes of change are determined by different variables. On the one hand, stringent cost pressure is being exerted on all western health systems from which an increased need for transparency, measurability, feasibility, and design potential is derived, and on the other, the nursing sciences are academically a highly prospering field at the moment. Within the nursing sciences, efforts for standardisation, process design, quality assurance, and evidence-based nursing are currently being made. Putting these two currents together, it is almost inevitable that the relevance of nursing informatics (NI) increases and not just because a greater need for IT tools has arisen through increasing digitalisation of the nursing process in applied nursing. This has two consequences. First, the nursing staff—irrespective of whether they are still in training or already practicing—has to deal increasingly with nursing informatics and nursing IT tools and learn how to put this into practice. Second, the specifications of knowledge transfer have to be considered within the nursing sciences if this process is to be successful. This means that IT tool application programmes cannot be restricted to acquiring particular functionalities, rather it revolves around the observation and organisation of actual nursing scientific knowledge transfer. If one desires to approach the topic of integrated curricula in nursing education, then the focal point surely lies in the perspective of integration. The combining of IT tools, nursing scientific knowledge transfer, and applied nursing portrays a necessity. Alternately, the term ‘nursing education’ is a broad one. It concerns vocational and academic training as well as the interactive element between applied nursing and the nursing sciences.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Evidence Based Nursing Practice: An attempt to more uniformly apply the standards of evidence gained from the scientific method to certain aspects of nursing practice.
Knowledge Transfer: The transfer of knowledge from one part of an organisation to another, but not just on a communication level (i.e., email, letter, and telephone).
Theory-Practice Gap: The gulf between what is taught to student nurses and the practical experiences they have while working. A theory-practice gap can also exist between nursing science theory and nursing practice.
Nursing Informatics: A specialty that uses a wide range of information technology based processes to enable nurses to work more proficiently. Here nurses have to collect, interpret, and document data and put this knowledge into practice when caring for their patients.