The AIDH-N.M Community of practice this month focuses on Digital Health Educational Opportunities for Nurses and Midwives. We hope you will join us in a meaningful discussion and sharing of resources.
Healthcare environments have been equipped with technology for the last few decades. However, the education around implementation, use and usability of such technology across all healthcare sectors, requiring nurses and midwives to be proficient with a range of digital tools, has only recently been identified.
The introduction of technology initially impacted the areas of care coordination and clinical documentation, but it has become more pervasive with the introduction of wearables, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotics to support remote patient monitoring and home care. All of which are foundational in today’s data, information, knowledge, wisdom continuum. Informatics competency and capability are now considered fundamental to preparing clinical graduates, with the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Accreditation Council (ANMAC) requiring all undergraduate nursing and midwifery program content to support the development and application of knowledge and skills in health informatics and technology from 2015.
The Australian Digital Health Agency released its National Digital Health Workforce and Education Roadmap in 2019, acknowledging how the application of digital technologies are influencing the workforce and associated education requirements.
The Roadmap was followed, in 2020, by the National Nursing and Midwifery Digital Health Capability Framework, which outlines core skills, knowledge and behaviour required by nurses and midwives Nurses and midwives are seeking educational opportunities for two pathways – to deliver safe and high-quality care using technologies in clinical practice, and to select a career in nursing or midwifery informatics.
Education opportunities exist for nurses and midwives to increase their knowledge and skills in this area, encompassing both in-person and distance modes of learning.
There are an increasing number of digital health and health informatics post graduate courses offered by the higher education sector in Australia, such as those addressing digital health, bioinformatics, health data science, and so on.
Whilst not specifically nursing or midwifery focused, these courses address fundamental digital health and informatics skills that can be applied to the disciplines.
Short courses in specific themes within digital health are informatics are another way for nurses and midwives to learn about concepts.
These are offered by academic and non-academic providers. Massive Open Online Courses or MOOCs offer courses in health and nursing informatics in a user-pay and free format.
Nurses and midwives who have some experience in health informatics can undertake a Certified Health Informatician Australasia (CHIA) credentialing program.
The certification evaluates the candidate’s knowledge of the six Australian Health Informatics Competencies domains.
For those nurses and midwives with a wealth of digital health and informatics experience, gained through a sustained period of personal study, the AIDH also offers the opportunity of application for Fellowship.
Further information on these options can be found at the AIDH N.M website.
Have your say by logging into the Nursing.Midwifery community group on SocialLink.