Nurses are part of the success of electronic health records and must be part of their implementation process, according to Rebecca Freeman, chief nursing officer at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT.
In her post to the Health IT Buzz blog, Freeman notes that nurses and non-IT factors can improve the health IT experience, and that many of the challenges nurses face have less to do with the technology itself and more to do with the policies and processes regarding workflow and implementation of EHRs. She recommends that all types of nurses, including bedside nurses, nurse leadership, nurse educators and others, be integrated into pre-implementation, implementation and post-implementation of such systems. Blog post