The Impact of Nurse-Patient Engagement with Health Information Technology on Patient Portal Usage

The patient portal, a Health Information Technology (HIT) tool, was created to promote patient engagement with available health information to improve health outcomes. Low patient portal use of available educational interventions with a HIT tool is an identified problem at a rural hospital in North Carolina. Low usage could be related to nurses’ unfamiliarity with HIT tools. This DNP project provided nursing staff with a flipped classroom learning module on utilizing available HIT tools within the hospital setting, increasing nurses’ engagement with the patient portal. A sample of Registered Nurses (RNs) from two units who were previously taught to utilize the new HIT tool, MyChart Bedside, using traditional teaching methods were offered additional education using flipped learning methodologies. Pre-intervention and Post-intervention Information Technology Attitude Scales for Health (ITASH) questionnaires were administered to determine nurses’ perceived abilities to utilize MyChart Bedside. Sixty RNs received the ITASH surveys. Also, usage of MyChart Bedside was monitored monthly for three months to determine if the flipped classroom learning methodology impacted portal use. The survey results indicated that Factor 1: Care Value of Information Communication Technology (ICT) and Factor 3: ICT confidence scores significantly increased post-implementation of the flipped classroom, p-value \u3c.0001. However, there were no significant differences for Factors 2: Training of ICT skills and Factors 4: Workload value of ICT. The patient portal percent increase from pre-intervention to post-intervention was significant, with one unit increasing from 1 to 30 percent. In conclusion, this project demonstrated that the flipped learning classroom can play an important role in introducing a HIT tool to RNs