Nursing information system: a relevant substitute of the paper nursing record.

OBJECTIVE

A teaching hospital in the Netherlands has developed a Nursing Information System (NIS). After the NIS was implemented in six wards in March 2009, the NIS was evaluated. Since micro-relevance is a key-factor in adoption of Information Systems, the objective of this study is to reveal which aspects of the NIS are micro-relevant to nurses.

METHODS

A paper questionnaire was distributed among all 195 nurses, who used the system. Included in the research were 93 (47.7%) respondents. Also six NIS-users were interviewed, using the USE IT-model.

RESULTS

Nurses mainly used those functions of the NIS, which were essential for reporting or retrieving patient information. The NIS was appreciated for supplying unhampered access to complete, legible, structured patient data.

CONCLUSIONS

For nurses the NIS is a good substitute for the paper record. The micro-relevance of other functionality than supplying information seems to be low.