Google Glass in Nursing Education: Can Baccalaureate Nursing Students Use Wearable Technology to Access Knowledge at the Point of Care?

Technology use is ubiquitous in nursing, therefore it is vitally important that pre-licensure nurses have opportunities to develop nursing informatics skills and abilities that prepare them to practice in an ever-changing environment filled with technology. This quantitative, qualitative, interpretive, descriptive pilot study takes an established teaching method (simulation) and evaluates how baccalaureate nursing students can use an emerging disruptive technology (EDT) to impact decisions at the point of care. Eleven (100%) of the participants successfully completed two tasks using Google Glass, (GG): (a) they accessed data at the point of care; (b) completed a Situation Background Assessment Response (SBAR) report to a remote provider hands free. Two themes about using GG focused on communication and safety. This pilot indicates that using EDT in pre-licensure nursing education may be an effective way to narrow the education practice gap in nursing informatics, especially as it applies to nurse as knowledge worker