Using Information Technology in Community-Based Psychiatric Nursing Education: The SJSU/NT Project

Abstract

Information management is growing in importance in health care delivery. Practitioners, case managers, third-party payers, and health care policy makers are increasingly basing their health care decisions on timely and relevant clinicaldata. Since 1997, San Jose State University nursing students have been using the Nightingale Tracker, a computerized clinical communication system, to document client care, electronically transfer clinical information to their instructors, and maintain a systematic method for storing clinical data for further use in program planning, prediction of health care trends, and other research endeavors. Clearly, the potential increase in quality care makes the investment in this information technology (IT) experience worthwhile. Faculty are changing the education paradigm to a learning paradigm, preparing practitioners who can use IT in the current managed care environment to monitor costs while improving care— valuable skills to possess in this ever-evolving health care delivery system.