WGU D220 Information Technology in Nursing
Practice - Complete Course Guide & OA Prep -
2026/2027
Objective Assessment V2 – 50 Questions
All items are scenario-based, multiple-choice (4 options).
Rationale format: principle → why distractor is flawed.
Section 1: Clinical Application of Health IT (15 Q)
Q1
Scenario: A nurse is admitting a new patient who uses multiple specialists. The EHR
medication-reconciliation tab pulls outpatient Rx data from the state HIE.
Question: What is the PRIMARY nursing informatics benefit of using the HIE for med rec
in this scenario?
A. It eliminates the need to verbally interview the patient about medications.
B. It provides a more complete and accurate medication history, improving patient
safety.
C. It allows the nurse to auto-order new medications based on the report.
D. It reduces the hospital’s liability for medication errors.
,Correct Answer: B
Rationale: HIE aggregates data from disparate sources, giving the nurse a fuller picture
and directly increasing safety. Relying solely on HIE without patient interview (A) is
unsafe and non-compliant with Joint Commission requirements.
Q2
Scenario: During bar-code medication administration, the scanner displays “No
match—medication not in patient’s profile.”
Question: What is the nurse’s BEST informatics-based action?
A. Override the warning and give the drug to avoid treatment delay.
B. Recheck the medication against the eMAR, verify patient identity, and contact the
pharmacist before proceeding.
C. Retype the patient ID later and give the drug now.
D. Document the med under “given” and inform pharmacy afterward.
Correct Answer: B
Rationale: BCMA is a high-alert safety system; overriding without investigation (A)
bypasses the forcing function and risks error. Following alert resolution workflow
maintains data integrity and safety.
Q3
Scenario: A provider enters “Diazepam 5 mg PO qHS” for an elderly inpatient. A
best-practice CDS alert fires: “Consider reduced dose ≥65 y or use fall-risk protocol.”
Question: The alert is an example of which informatics concept?
, A. Point-of-care data mining
B. Clinical decision support (knowledge-based)
C. Predictive analytics
D. Interoperability standard
Correct Answer: B
Rationale: The system applies an encoded rule (knowledge) to prompt safer
action—classic CDS. Predictive analytics (C) would forecast an outcome, not flag a
guideline.
Q4
Scenario: A nurse manager runs an EHR “fall-risk compliance” dashboard that graphs
percentage of patients with documented risk assessments each shift.
Question: Which Quality Improvement activity is MOST supported by this dashboard?
A. Root-cause analysis of a single patient fall
B. Real-time identification of units not completing risk assessments
C. Automatic fall-risk stratification by algorithm
D. Generation of a research dataset
Correct Answer: B
Rationale: Dashboards visualize process measures in near-real-time, enabling rapid
unit-level feedback. They do not perform RCA (A) or replace stratification algorithms (C).
Q5
Practice - Complete Course Guide & OA Prep -
2026/2027
Objective Assessment V2 – 50 Questions
All items are scenario-based, multiple-choice (4 options).
Rationale format: principle → why distractor is flawed.
Section 1: Clinical Application of Health IT (15 Q)
Q1
Scenario: A nurse is admitting a new patient who uses multiple specialists. The EHR
medication-reconciliation tab pulls outpatient Rx data from the state HIE.
Question: What is the PRIMARY nursing informatics benefit of using the HIE for med rec
in this scenario?
A. It eliminates the need to verbally interview the patient about medications.
B. It provides a more complete and accurate medication history, improving patient
safety.
C. It allows the nurse to auto-order new medications based on the report.
D. It reduces the hospital’s liability for medication errors.
,Correct Answer: B
Rationale: HIE aggregates data from disparate sources, giving the nurse a fuller picture
and directly increasing safety. Relying solely on HIE without patient interview (A) is
unsafe and non-compliant with Joint Commission requirements.
Q2
Scenario: During bar-code medication administration, the scanner displays “No
match—medication not in patient’s profile.”
Question: What is the nurse’s BEST informatics-based action?
A. Override the warning and give the drug to avoid treatment delay.
B. Recheck the medication against the eMAR, verify patient identity, and contact the
pharmacist before proceeding.
C. Retype the patient ID later and give the drug now.
D. Document the med under “given” and inform pharmacy afterward.
Correct Answer: B
Rationale: BCMA is a high-alert safety system; overriding without investigation (A)
bypasses the forcing function and risks error. Following alert resolution workflow
maintains data integrity and safety.
Q3
Scenario: A provider enters “Diazepam 5 mg PO qHS” for an elderly inpatient. A
best-practice CDS alert fires: “Consider reduced dose ≥65 y or use fall-risk protocol.”
Question: The alert is an example of which informatics concept?
, A. Point-of-care data mining
B. Clinical decision support (knowledge-based)
C. Predictive analytics
D. Interoperability standard
Correct Answer: B
Rationale: The system applies an encoded rule (knowledge) to prompt safer
action—classic CDS. Predictive analytics (C) would forecast an outcome, not flag a
guideline.
Q4
Scenario: A nurse manager runs an EHR “fall-risk compliance” dashboard that graphs
percentage of patients with documented risk assessments each shift.
Question: Which Quality Improvement activity is MOST supported by this dashboard?
A. Root-cause analysis of a single patient fall
B. Real-time identification of units not completing risk assessments
C. Automatic fall-risk stratification by algorithm
D. Generation of a research dataset
Correct Answer: B
Rationale: Dashboards visualize process measures in near-real-time, enabling rapid
unit-level feedback. They do not perform RCA (A) or replace stratification algorithms (C).
Q5
