Technostress Mitigation via Technology-Integrated Curriculum in Schools of Nursing

Background: The consequences of unmanaged technostress are profound, affecting individual well-being. Technology, despite its benefits for productivity and connectivity, can lead to symptoms associated with technostress. Employees experiencing technostress report higher levels of anxiety, frustration, and burnout, leading to decreased job satisfaction, reduced productivity, and increased absenteeism. Technostress is the stress experienced from the inability to cope with new technologies, and it manifests through information overload, privacy invasion, blurred personal and professional boundaries, and the constant pressure to upgrade digital skills. The American Psychological Association defines technostress as a form of occupational stress that is associated with information and communication technologies such as the internet, mobile devices, and social media. Technostress is seen in many organizations where affected employees become anxious or overwhelmed by working in computer-focused environments yielding a constant flow of new information. This has detrimental effects on individuals’ health, productivity, and work satisfaction. Problem statement: The healthcare industry is, by necessity, a technology-rich environment with direct connection of the patient to technology that informs about their physical status. Patient-generated information also flows among providers through technology called the electronic health record (EHR). Nurses, for example, have been noted to spend up to 35% of their shift interacting with the EHR for data retrieval and data entry for patients in their care. Interestingly, teaching associated with use of the EHR in nursing schools is the exception rather than the rule. In other words, some sources indicate that only 10% of student nurses have been taught to use an EHR before they graduate from nursing school. Thus, when they enter their post-graduate nursing role, they have little to no skills in managing the EHR technology with which they will spend 47% of their time in patient care delivery. Innovative approach: The academic EHR, when used as part of the nursing school curriculum, has been found to improve technology-based confidence and digital documentation skills. This approach to teaching EHR used prior to graduation can mitigate the effects of post-graduation technostress in newly graduated nurses. The academic EHR is an EHR that looks and feels much like a healthcare industry-based EHR found in most hospitals today, with the exception that the nursing faculty controls the patient-generated content so that it matches the curriculum-base objectives of the nursing program. Academic EHR skills development has been found to provide a smooth transition to the post-graduation nursing role. Purpose: The purpose of this poster is to present the implementation process of academic EHR installation, including use of the system development life cycle (SDLC) methodology, associated results of nursing student and faculty experiences as the students learn to use an academic EHR that is integrated into their nursing school curriculum, and how technostress can be mitigated in the post-graduation nursing role.