NURSES' KNOWLEDGE, PERCEPTIONS AND ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE USE OF ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORDS : A PILOT STUDY OF A CLINIC IN JEDDAH CITY, SAUDI ARABIA

This paper reports the findings of a pilot study investigating nurses' knowledge, perceptions, and attitudes towards using electronic medical records. The pilot study involved 230 nurses at single clinic in Jeddah City in Saudi Arabia and forms part of a more extensive study looking at in excess of 2,000 nurses views on, and level of acceptance of EMR in hospitals across Riyadh and Jeddah City, based on key criteria such as nurses age and education, computer literacy, stage in their career, and opportunities for and experiences of using EMR. Initial findings from the pilot show that there is no significant relation between years of prior computer experience and the knowledge or attitude toward EMR; that there are widely differing views across the study population with regards to how effective they perceive EMR to be; and that there are a range of preferred approaches to learning more about EMR.