Holistic digitalization of the nursing internship process in the federal state of Salzburg with strong user involvement

Background: In the federal state of Salzburg, the harmonization of nursing internship took place from 2014-2019 as a joint effort of educational and internship providers. Currently the handling of these mostly paper pencil-based documents involves a manual process through different institutions and people. Objectives: The project provides the basis for the implementation of the "internship platform". In the future, this is to be the digital, state-of-the-art one-stop shop for the state-wide practical nursing training (in the form of immanent internships) at all training levels. Methods: The process is influenced by modern requirements engineering techniques: As-is analysis of the internship process and related documents, contextual inquires in different internship providers, iterative focus group discussions focusing first on user stories, then on interface designs, and final user testing. Results: Standardized workflow and authorization concept for all user groups, mandatory requirements for the software system, tested user interfaces, tender documents for EU-wide tender procedure. Conclusion: Positive feedback from all involved user groups on project goal, results and involvement in the process.