A Qualitative Study of Physicians, Surgeons, Nurses, Clinicians, and Administrators Perception of Training to Learn Mandated Healthcare Informatics Tool Conducted at DC Veterans Affair Hospital

The Veterans Affair Department (VA) developed a medical informatics software application for managing all aspects of healthcare in the widely dispersed VA operation. VA manages more than 800 facilities that include hospitals, convalescent centers, tertiary care facilities, as well as many other facilities throughout the United Sates. Use of the medical informatics software application is mandatory for all personnel working at a VA facility. All personnel include specialists, generalists, nursing staff, clinicians, and administrators. The VA employs more than 80,000 employees throughout its facilities. The health care informatics product built by the VA is computerized patient record system (CPRS) and has more than 99 applications all available to all VA employees at all times. Additionally, CPRS provides multiple views of data. The multiple views include text, graphic, and imaging. Furthermore, all personnel can insert notes on patient interaction. This paper reviews training procedures at one VA location in the District of Columbia, USA, using a qualitative interview approach to better understand the quality of training perceived by the end-users for learning such a large application.