According to the introduction, what is the most telling predictor of whether nurses in a country are included in national healthcare IT strategies?

The most telling predictor is whether a country controls its own university-based nursing degree programs with nursing faculty prepared at the master's and doctoral level. Where such programs are just beginning, nursing tends to be excluded from national healthcare IT strategies.

In the Section I introduction, the author argues that variation in nursing's professional status across nations is grounded in historic beginnings, but the strongest indicator of nurses' inclusion in national EHR strategies is the country's control over university-based nursing education, specifically having faculty prepared at the master's and doctoral level. When university-based nursing degree programs are only emerging, nursing is often left outside national healthcare IT planning.