Implementing Electronic Patient Record and VIPS in Medical Hospital Wards: Evaluating Change in Quantity and Quality of Nursing Documentation by Using the Audit Instrument Cat-Ch-Ing‪.‬

Introduction Computerization of nursing documentation is ongoing in large parts of Norwegian health care services. Application of Electronic Patient Record (EPR) will influence how patients experience continuity of care and how nurses can perform safe care (1). Nursing documentation can also be a tool in measuring nursing quality indicators (2) or performance of nursing care (3). Even though nursing documentation has been developed internationally in decades, it is still often found to be inadequate and there is lack of consensus about how it should be implemented (4). Karkkainen et.al. (5) suggest that nursing documentation is at a crossroad, where the effort should be made to influence how documentation can be made an essential part of good patient care.