Continuing Educational Program in Nursing Informatics for Greek Nurses.

ABSTRACT

Nurses are required to adapt to a complex and rapidly evolving environment that incorporates new IT technologies. Continuing, lifelong learning, especially in the fast-growing fields of Nursing Informatics, eHealth and related Information and Communication Technologies, is vital to the professionalism of nurses. The study presents the curriculum development and implementation of the educational project entitled "Training of Nurses in Nursing Informatics and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)" which has been designed and offered to Greek nurses as a continuing - lifelong online educational program by the Health Informatics Laboratory of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. The training material was created in three modules and 29 sub-modules, considering the new advancements and recommended competencies, necessary for the nurse, in the fields of Nursing Informatics and ICT. So far, eight training cycle courses have been offered to 1388 nurses, free of charge. Each course integrates synchronous and asynchronous distance learning methods and requires a workload of 70 hours over 10 weeks. The initial evaluation of the course by the participants, concerning its effectiveness, usefulness, and innovation are very encouraging.