Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Medical Education
Date Submitted: Oct 1, 2023
Date Accepted: Jul 14, 2024
Newly Qualified Canadian Nurses’ Experiences with Digital Health in the Workplace: A Comparative Qualitative Analysis
ABSTRACT
Background:
Clinical practice settings have increasingly become dependent on the use of digital/ehealth technologies such as electronic health records. It is vitally important to support nurses in adapting to digitalized healthcare systems; however, little is known about nursing graduates’ experiences as they transition to the workplace.
Objective:
To 1) describe newly qualified nurses’ experiences with digital health in the workplace, and 2) identify strategies that could help support new graduates’ transition and practice with digital health.
Methods:
An exploratory descriptive qualitative design was used. Fourteen nurses from Eastern and Western Canada participated in semi-structured interviews and data was analyzed using inductive content analysis.
Results:
Three themes were identified: 1) experiences before becoming a registered nurse, 2) experiences upon joining the workplace, and 3) suggestions for bridging the gap in transition to digital health practice. Findings revealed more similarities than differences between participants with respect to gaps in digital health education, technology-related challenges, and their influence on nursing practice.
Conclusions:
Digital health is the foundation of contemporary healthcare; therefore, comprehensive education during nursing school and throughout professional nursing practice as well as organizational support and policy are critical pillars. Health systems investing in digital health technologies must create supportive work environments for nurses to thrive in technologically rich environments and increase their capacity to deliver the digital health future.
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.