Perception of Nurses in a Federal and State-Owned Hospital in Nigeria Toward Electronic Health Record Integration.

Abstract

The electronic health record is a growing concept that facilitates the use of standardized documentation, to improve the quality of care given to patients. This study assesses the perceptions and plausible barriers to the proper integration of the electronic health record among nurses in University College Hospital and Adeoyo Maternity Teaching Hospital, both located in Ibadan, Oyo State, in the Western part of Nigeria. The level of association between variables (age, level of academic qualification, and work experience) and nurses' perceptions of electronic health record was also tested. This was a descriptive cross-sectional study that used a simple random sampling technique to recruit 384 nurses, who completed a well-structured questionnaire. Approximately 57.0% of the respondents held poor perceptions of electronic health record integration. Barriers included poor electricity supply, lack of Internet connectivity, and infeasibility of electronic health record integration. An association between level of academic qualification, work experience, and participant perceptions about electronic health record integration was not found (P = .104; P = .027), whereas age was statistically significant (P = .014). Overall, participant perceptions about the integration of electronic health record were poor. Relevant stakeholders would find this result useful and may be required to pay more attention to electronic health records and put the necessary structures that would adequately address the barriers to the integration of electronic health records and train nurses to incorporate the same.