Current Status of Nursing Informatics Education in South African Universities

Diodemise Ese Ovwasa

Abstract


This paper investigates the extent of inclusion of nursing informatics (NI) and nursing informatics-related modules in undergraduate nursing programmes in South African higher education institutions. The study adopted a content analysis of websites of accredited public universities. Nursing programmes were located through the websites of the included institutions, as guided by the South African Nursing Council. Data was collected on modules that are related to NI/components of NI, the module contents and the year/semester of study. Eleven (11) accredited institutions from seven Provinces were identified and included in the study. The universities provided their curriculum on their websites with variation in details which may have been considered a likely limitation in this study. Results showed that none of the universities has “nursing informatics” as a module, 37% offered components of NI as modules, mostly in the first year of study. Of the 37%, 75% are from Western Cape Province and 25% from Gauteng. The observed NI components identified in this study were not completely related to the specific technologies that address modern day nursing, which is the concern of nursing informatics. The implication is that the low availability of either NI as a full module or its components does not in any way match the current expected practice of nursing in the global job market for NI competent nurse professionals. It was concluded that there should be a call for the appraisal of the current nursing education curriculum in South Africa to accommodate “Nursing Informatics” as a subject.


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