Factors influencing nursing students' acceptance of electronic health records for nursing education (EHRNE) software program

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the Health Information Technology Act (2009) in America had recommended that electronic health records (EHRs) should be fully adopted by 2014. This has urged educational institutions to prepare healthcare professionals to be competent in using electronic health records (EHRs) while they are in schools. To equip nursing students with competency in using EHRs, an electronic health record for nursing education (EHRNE) has been developed and integrated it into nursing curricula. The purposes of the study were to investigate the factors influencing nursing students' acceptance of the EHRs in nursing education using the extended Technology Acceptance Model with self-efficacy as a conceptual framework. The study is a descriptive study design using self-reported questionnaires with 212 student participants. The IBM SPSS and AMOS 22.0 were used to analyze the data. The results showed that attitude toward using the EHRNE was the most influential factor on students' acceptance. The preliminary findings suggested that to enhance the students' acceptance of the EHRNE, cultivation of a positive attitude toward using this EHR as well as increasing the perceived usefulness is very important. Also, the study's framework could be used in guiding learning health informatics and be applied to nursing students.