Nursing in the information age: status quo and future of ICT use in German hospitals.
Hospital information systems (HIS) should give support to nurses in their clinical and managerial duties. Though there are statistical data on the current use of HIS systems we know only little about the numbers of nursing modules implemented. We therefore conducted a nationwide survey in Germany (n = 2182) on the current state and future plans of HIS modules including nursing applications (response rate of 27.6 %). The findings show that management applications (84 % accounting) are still more frequent than clinical applications, in particular clinical patient record systems (19 %). What applied for HIS modules in general held also true for nursing on a lower level. Whereas 51 % of the hospitals had rostering systems in place only 6 % used care planning software. Priorities and plans for the future reveal no change in the rank order of systems. We argue that in order for clinical documentation and planning systems to catch up they must be immediately rewarding for the clinicians in their daily need for information
Hübner
Ursula
U
Healthcare Informatics, Faculty of Business Management and Social Sciences, University of Applied Sciences Osnabrück, PO Box 1940, D-49009 Osnabrück, Germany. u.huebner@fh-osnabrueck.de
Sellemann
Björn
B
D003625:Data Collection; D005858:Germany; D006739:Hospital Administration; D006751:Hospital Information Systems / Q000706:statistics & numerical data* / Q000639:trends; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized; D048108:Nursing Informatics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data* / Q000639:trends; D009737:Nursing Records; D009738:Nursing Service, Hospital / Q000458:organization & administration; D010346:Patient Care Management