Graduation Year

2009

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Ed.D.

Degree Granting Department

Adult, Career, and Higher Education

Major Professor

James Eison, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Michael Mills, Ph.D.

Committee Member

W. Robert Sullins, Ed.D.

Committee Member

H. William Heller, Ph.D.

Keywords

Higher Education, Eckel and Kezar (2003), St. Scholastica, University of Kansas, electronic health record, IOM

Abstract

The Health Professions Education: A Bridge to Quality (IOM, 2003) proposed strategies for higher education leaders and faculty to transform their institutions in ways that address the healthcare problems. This study provides higher education leaders and faculty with empirical data about the processes of change involved to implement the core competency of healthcare informatics. I chose the core competency of health care informatics as a base from which to conduct semi-structured interviews with faculty and college leaders at three schools of nursing intending to capture their stories about how healthcare informatics has been implemented, what strategies were used, and why they were selected.

All three nursing schools used patient case scenarios loaded into electronic health records in their computerized human simulation laboratories. Participants' at all three nursing programs reported increased use of the pedagogical approaches of active learning and problem-based learning in these simulation labs. These approaches encourage greater faculty-student and student-to-student interaction, engender more self-directed learning, and do a better job of providing students with a process for integrating previous learning.

University of Kansas and Large State University Schools of Nursing demonstrated results that substantiate the viability of the Mobile Model for Transformational Change. One school used almost all the suggested methods and achieved transformation; the other, which used some of the methods, was not transformed. I suggest the model would benefit from specific ways of detecting the breadth in the application of the change markers and from the addition of strategies for creating a breadth of intensity to the change processes. The components of the model relating to the structural and cultural markers of change need to be further developed to focus on the breadth of change. Finally, I suggest the Mobile Model needs greater emphasis on and clarification of the role and nature of intentionality in the change process, as well as a greater focus on the relationship between the core strategies, support strategies, and the breadth of change. The intent of college leaders is important, in part because without it the breadth of change required for transformational change is not likely to be achieved.

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