Introducing personal digital assistants to enhance nursing education in undergraduate and graduate nursing programs

This article describes how a school of nursing implemented an innovative program to introduce personal digital assistants to undergraduate and graduate nursing students. Undergraduate students studying pharmacology and nurse practitioner graduate students in an adult health course were asked to purchase a personal digital assistant privately or through the university bookstore. Faculty selected an appropriate software package. After students were oriented to the hardware and software package, innovative teaching strategies were implemented to help guide students to use their mobile devices to access clinically relevant information. Student feedback about this experience was positive. The most important elements for successful adoption of personal digital assistants are to provide training for both faculty and students, and to develop learning opportunities using the technology. Use of mobile technologies is an important competency that will improve the quality of nursing practice and therefore should be included in nursing curricula.