Informatics competencies for nurses at four levels of practice

Valid and comprehensive nursing informatics (NI) competencies currently are lacking. Meanwhile, nursing leaders are emphasizing the need to include NI in nursing curricula, as well as within the roles of practicing nurses in all settings. This article presents the initial work of a team of NI expert s toward development of a valid and reliable set of NI competencies. Previo us work primarily has focused on computer-related skills, rather than exami ning a broad definition of informatics competencies. For this current work, NI competencies encompass all skills, not only computer-related skills, as well as knowledge and attitudes needed by nurses. The first two authors cr eated a database of NI competencies from the existing literature. A larger panel of NI experts then affirmed, modified, added, or deleted competencies from this database. Competencies were placed into four distinct skill leve ls. Definitions of each skill level and an initial master list of competenc ies are provided.