The NIGHTINGALE Project which started on the 1st of January, 1996, after the approval of the European Commission, and has a 36 month duration is essential in planning and implementation of strategy in Training the Nursing Profession in using and applying healthcare information systems.
NIGHTINGALE will contribute towards the appropriate use of the developed Telematatics infrastructure across Europe by educating and training nurses in a harmonising way across Europe in the upcoming field of Nursing Informatics.
NIGHTINGALE will cooperate with all European actions and projects in the area of training health care professionals to provide consensus curriculum development in Nursing Informatics. The most essential part and contribution of this development will be provided by the Users' Group that is comprised of nursing professionals, nursing systems professionals and health policy makers in the area of nursing education represented from all European Union member states. The Users' Group will be the monitoring and dissemination body of the work performed, where workshops and conferences will be the major platform of the consensus process
NIGHTINGALE will develop courseware material based on the curriculum development process using multimedia technologies. Computer based training software packages in Nursing Informatics will be the basis of the training material and the corresponding courses. CD-ROM based training and reference material will be also provided in the courses whereas the traditional booklets, teaching material and textbooks can play an adequate role in training.
NIGHTINGALE will disseminate all information and courseware material freely to all interested parties through the publications of the proceedings of the Conferences, through the establishment of the World Wide Web Server in Nursing Informatics for Europe (http://www.dn.uoa.gr/nightingale), which will become a depository of Nursing Information knowledge across Europe as well as a dissemination node of Nursing Informatics throughout the European members states for the benefit and welfare of the European citizen.