Information quality of a Nursing Information System depends on the nurses: a combined quantitative and qualitative evaluation

Purpose: Providing access to patient information is the key factor in nurses' adoption of a Nursing Information System (NIS). In this study the requirements for information quality and the perceived quality of information are investigated. A teaching hospital in the Netherlands has developed a NIS as a module of the Hospital Information System. After the NIS was implemented in six wards in March 2009, the NIS was evaluated.

Methods: A paper questionnaire was distributed among all 195 nurses, who used the system. Included in the research were 93 (48%) respondents. Also twelve NIS-users were interviewed, using the USE IT-model.

Results: Nurses express a broad need for information of each patient. Although the history is essential, the information needs are not very specified. They expect complete, correct, up-to-date and accessible information of each patient. The information quality of the NIS is satisfactory, but needs improvement. Since the achieved quality of information depends largely on the data-entry by the nurses themselves, a controversy exists between the required information quality and the effort needed to accomplish this.

Conclusions: The aspect of data-entry by the user of the information is not included in Information Quality-literature. To further increase the quality of information, a redesign of both process and system seems necessary, which reduces the information needs of nurses and rewards the nurse for accurate data-entry.