Current nursing and midwifery leadership contribution to leading digital health policy and practice: An integrative review.

Aim: To review the current nursing and midwifery contribution to leading digital health policy and practice and what facilitates and/or challenges this.

Design: Integrative literature review 

Methods: Pre-defined inclusion criteria were used. Study selection and quality assessment using the appropriate critical appraisal tools were undertaken by two authors, followed by narratives synthesis.

Data sources: Six databases and hand searching for papers published 2012 to February 2024.

Findings: Four themes were identified from twenty-four included papers. These are discussed according to the World Health Organisation’s Global Strategic Directions for Nursing and Midwifery; and indicate nurses/midwives are leading digital health policy and practice, but this is not widespread or systematically enabled.

Conclusion: Nurses and midwives are ideally placed to help improve health outcomes through digital healthcare transformation, but their policy leadership potential is underused.