What did you like or dislike about taking an asynchronous online course?
I just like online courses. I like having the ability to work at my own pace and to search for information that I need. I find online courses to be challenging and I like the feeling of completion with each finished assignment. It's always exciting to log on and find the grade for each assignment. I also feel that I learn well through online courses because it requires hands-on learning and that is how I learn best. I like having the ability to work autonomously but also knowing that there is help if I need it. The fact that this course was asynchronous did not really make much difference in my ability to learn the material or to do the assignments.
What topic did you learn the most about and what was your favorite topic? What did you like least?
The topic I learned the most about is information security and confidentiality. I had a basic understanding of this concept and certainly was familiar with HIPPA and the importance of keeping confidentiality, but I did not realize the extend of work that goes into keeping electronic medical records secure.
The topic I liked the least was Module # 2 and learning how to use programs that keep a record of references. However, I feel that my frustration with this module was the problems I had with my operating system, Vista. I was not successful in attaining EndNote.
Overall, I enjoyed this course and am appreciative of the constant support I received from the instructors. I always received timely answers to my questions and excellent help with my problems. One thing I did learn, (which, by now, I should already do) is to read the instructions through before starting an assignment....it would have made my work a bit easier on some of the assignments. Thank you for a great learning experience!
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
Module 5
Why would a patient want to create a blog? What might they gain from this?
Patients may want to create a blog based on their medical experiences, allowing them to share with others their challenges and experiences. This is an excellent way to offer support to others who are newly diagnosed with a similar condition (Hebda & Czar, 2009).
A very good friend of mine was diagnosed with breast cancer last year. She created a blog and posted updates one or two times a week. This helped her keep her family and friends informed of her experiences and her progress with her surgery and chemotherapy and reconstructive surgery. She has many, many family members and friends who all wanted to know how she was doing and they would call her often. This was a good way to keep all informed and decrease the amount of phone calls she was receiving. She told me that it was also a sort of journal for her and she has been able to look back on her progress and feel successful in her journey down that road.
Why would a health care provider create a blog?
A health care provider may create a blog to communicate with other professionals, manage and share knowledge, mitigate error and support decision making using this technology. Improvement in patient care can be achieved through the collaboration of healthcare professionals, the sharing of knowledge and active discussion through Internet-based platforms such as blogs (Hebda & Czar, 2009).
As students in this course, we have created this blog and have been able to post to it often. I have recieved feedback from my instructors and from other students on my entries and feel I have learned a great deal from this experience.
What are ethical considerations when blogging on a public website?
Clinical blogs are password protected to prevent inadvertent disclosure of someones identity. It is important to keep in mind the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) to respect and protect privacy (Hebda & Czar, 2009). Blogs allow users to post comments to entries as long as the proper "netiquette" is observed (Saba & McCormick, 2006).
References:
Hebda, T., Czar, P. (2009). Handbook of Informatics for Nurses and Healthcare Professionals (4th ed). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson-Prentice Hall
Saba, V. K., McCormick, K. A. (2006). essentials of Nursing Informatics (4th ed). McGraw-Hill, Medical Publishing Division
Patients may want to create a blog based on their medical experiences, allowing them to share with others their challenges and experiences. This is an excellent way to offer support to others who are newly diagnosed with a similar condition (Hebda & Czar, 2009).
A very good friend of mine was diagnosed with breast cancer last year. She created a blog and posted updates one or two times a week. This helped her keep her family and friends informed of her experiences and her progress with her surgery and chemotherapy and reconstructive surgery. She has many, many family members and friends who all wanted to know how she was doing and they would call her often. This was a good way to keep all informed and decrease the amount of phone calls she was receiving. She told me that it was also a sort of journal for her and she has been able to look back on her progress and feel successful in her journey down that road.
Why would a health care provider create a blog?
A health care provider may create a blog to communicate with other professionals, manage and share knowledge, mitigate error and support decision making using this technology. Improvement in patient care can be achieved through the collaboration of healthcare professionals, the sharing of knowledge and active discussion through Internet-based platforms such as blogs (Hebda & Czar, 2009).
As students in this course, we have created this blog and have been able to post to it often. I have recieved feedback from my instructors and from other students on my entries and feel I have learned a great deal from this experience.
What are ethical considerations when blogging on a public website?
Clinical blogs are password protected to prevent inadvertent disclosure of someones identity. It is important to keep in mind the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) to respect and protect privacy (Hebda & Czar, 2009). Blogs allow users to post comments to entries as long as the proper "netiquette" is observed (Saba & McCormick, 2006).
References:
Hebda, T., Czar, P. (2009). Handbook of Informatics for Nurses and Healthcare Professionals (4th ed). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson-Prentice Hall
Saba, V. K., McCormick, K. A. (2006). essentials of Nursing Informatics (4th ed). McGraw-Hill, Medical Publishing Division
Monday, July 5, 2010
Module 4
The readings influenced my perception of my own clinical decision-making by helping me to be more aware of how often I rely on intuition or past experiences when I am making decisions. I am also more aware of how often I use evidence based medicine when making decision about my patients. I have been in my present position of managing patients with diabetes for about 5 years. When I started in this position, I did not have much experience with diabetes other than working as a staff nurse in the hospital. As I worked with the PA that trained me, I began to acquire information and experience that lead me towards better decision making. I also have many hours of research on diabetes and diabetes related issues to help me acquire the information to help in my decisions. Although I know that presently, some of my actions are guided by experience, much of it is still guided by evidence based medicine.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Module 3
What sort of teaching is done in your nursing role?
I work in a diabetes care clinic and manage patients with type 1, type 2 and gestational diabetes. My passion is gestational diabetes and women with pregnancy complicated by diabetes. I believe that most of my time spent with a patient is teaching of some aspect of diabetes. I explain what diabetes is, what causes diabetes, prevention, treatment with diet and exercise, oral meds and/or insulin, weight control and exercise. I instruct on the importance of foot care, eye care, skin care, good control of BG levels and WHY it is so important. With my pregnant gals, I instruct in all the areas above but also stress the importance of keeping BG levels under tight control to avoid and prevent complications to the fetus as well as the mom. If I have a patient that informs me of their intent to get pregnant, I do in-depth preconceptual teaching.
Is there any nursing role that does not involve teaching in some manner?
I do not think that any nursing role exists that does not involve teaching. When I worked as a staff nurse in the hospital we were teaching our patients on everything from how to get out of bed with the least amount of pain to dressing changes to follow up care after discharge. Also, we taught the reasons for medications and how they work to help the healing process. As a mentor to students, we taught about everything we do during a shift and why. As a provider the teaching is in a slightly different arena but ongoing with every encounter we have with our patients. We exchange information with our colleagues on an ongoing basis and not only teach at times but learn as well.
I work in a diabetes care clinic and manage patients with type 1, type 2 and gestational diabetes. My passion is gestational diabetes and women with pregnancy complicated by diabetes. I believe that most of my time spent with a patient is teaching of some aspect of diabetes. I explain what diabetes is, what causes diabetes, prevention, treatment with diet and exercise, oral meds and/or insulin, weight control and exercise. I instruct on the importance of foot care, eye care, skin care, good control of BG levels and WHY it is so important. With my pregnant gals, I instruct in all the areas above but also stress the importance of keeping BG levels under tight control to avoid and prevent complications to the fetus as well as the mom. If I have a patient that informs me of their intent to get pregnant, I do in-depth preconceptual teaching.
Is there any nursing role that does not involve teaching in some manner?
I do not think that any nursing role exists that does not involve teaching. When I worked as a staff nurse in the hospital we were teaching our patients on everything from how to get out of bed with the least amount of pain to dressing changes to follow up care after discharge. Also, we taught the reasons for medications and how they work to help the healing process. As a mentor to students, we taught about everything we do during a shift and why. As a provider the teaching is in a slightly different arena but ongoing with every encounter we have with our patients. We exchange information with our colleagues on an ongoing basis and not only teach at times but learn as well.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Module 2
You used an electronic index, a guideline index and a web search engine to retrieve informaton relevant to your clincal problem. Compare and contrast your results. Which resources were useful/not useful for your information retrieval task, and why? Identify some alternative strategies for retrieving relevant informaton - would context relevant information retrieval be useful?
I found PubMed to be a fairly easy program to navigate. It is probably due to the fact that I have used the basics of it in the past but the tutorial we watched was very informative and I was able to do much more to aid my citation search. It was almost self explanatory once I knew what Limits, subheadings, boolean terms and MeSH were. PubMed was certainly useful for my retrieval task. I found the Ntional Guideline Clearinghouse web site to be very busy and confusing. It was complicated compared to PubMed. There were options to aid in my search but not as easy to understand and it seemed as though there were not as many options, more lists as such to chose from. I used Google search and typed in 'diabetes and pregnancy and metformin' and got 20,600,000 hits. Most of these were information sites such as American Diabetes Association, March of Dimes, CDC and pharmacutical sites. There were a few articles but very few RCT or clincial reviews or meta analysis or journal articles. It would take hours to sift through all those sites to find anything that was evidence based and usable for research. I have used Google Scholar before and found more articles that were relevant to a research project but many of them were for a fee.
I found PubMed to be a fairly easy program to navigate. It is probably due to the fact that I have used the basics of it in the past but the tutorial we watched was very informative and I was able to do much more to aid my citation search. It was almost self explanatory once I knew what Limits, subheadings, boolean terms and MeSH were. PubMed was certainly useful for my retrieval task. I found the Ntional Guideline Clearinghouse web site to be very busy and confusing. It was complicated compared to PubMed. There were options to aid in my search but not as easy to understand and it seemed as though there were not as many options, more lists as such to chose from. I used Google search and typed in 'diabetes and pregnancy and metformin' and got 20,600,000 hits. Most of these were information sites such as American Diabetes Association, March of Dimes, CDC and pharmacutical sites. There were a few articles but very few RCT or clincial reviews or meta analysis or journal articles. It would take hours to sift through all those sites to find anything that was evidence based and usable for research. I have used Google Scholar before and found more articles that were relevant to a research project but many of them were for a fee.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Module 1 assignment
Describe what is happening related to IT in your clinical area.
I hate to admit that when I first entered nursing we did all of our charting by hand with paper charting....YIKES! It was laborious and boring and it was difficult to go back through patient charts to find information related to what happened on day one, or results of a procedure. It was also easy to forget information that was vital to the patient, when we found time to chart.
I remember when our unit implemented computer charting. We all thought it was the worst expectation for nurses....how were we ever going to learn it all!? We were trained on Tandam and it actually resulted in better charting and time management.
I work for IHC and the diabetes clinic was using Clinical Workstation when I started working there. We have always been on the entry level of new computer technology. We have recently implemented the HELP2 Clinical Desktop. It was a bit overwhelming at first BUT...what a difference in information organization. We have had several training sessions with the computer experts and we now have access to so many applications for information retreival, EBM articles and drug information. We no longer have to write prescriptions by hand and we also have drug to drug, drug to condition alerts whenever we write for a new medication which decreases the chance of errors.
We have access to E-Resource, which includes Micromedex, UpToDate, PubMed, etc and is invaluable on a daily basis. We have access to image acquisition, Lab Order Entry and Hottext. This allows us to access information while we are with the patient and to discuss this with the patient. It also allows us to make better evidence-based decisions on the healthcare we provide.
We also have access to Message Log which allows us to be in contact with any of the patients providers that are based with Intermountain Healthcare. This has given us the ability to be in contact with other providers on a daily basis to coordinate care.
Recently, President Obama recognized Intermountain Healthcare as a model of care. It was said that "Much of the rest of the country tends to focus on the volumes of healthcare services they provide, because that is what the system rewards, rather than the care that's necessary to help the patient. In Intermountaion Healthcare and in Utah we focus on evidence-based medicine and we're more able to provide only the services our patients need"(Obama Singles Out Intermountain Healthcare as Model System). Much of this ability to provide only services that are needed by the patient is due, in great part, to our availability of informatics technology.
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=7873613
I hate to admit that when I first entered nursing we did all of our charting by hand with paper charting....YIKES! It was laborious and boring and it was difficult to go back through patient charts to find information related to what happened on day one, or results of a procedure. It was also easy to forget information that was vital to the patient, when we found time to chart.
I remember when our unit implemented computer charting. We all thought it was the worst expectation for nurses....how were we ever going to learn it all!? We were trained on Tandam and it actually resulted in better charting and time management.
I work for IHC and the diabetes clinic was using Clinical Workstation when I started working there. We have always been on the entry level of new computer technology. We have recently implemented the HELP2 Clinical Desktop. It was a bit overwhelming at first BUT...what a difference in information organization. We have had several training sessions with the computer experts and we now have access to so many applications for information retreival, EBM articles and drug information. We no longer have to write prescriptions by hand and we also have drug to drug, drug to condition alerts whenever we write for a new medication which decreases the chance of errors.
We have access to E-Resource, which includes Micromedex, UpToDate, PubMed, etc and is invaluable on a daily basis. We have access to image acquisition, Lab Order Entry and Hottext. This allows us to access information while we are with the patient and to discuss this with the patient. It also allows us to make better evidence-based decisions on the healthcare we provide.
We also have access to Message Log which allows us to be in contact with any of the patients providers that are based with Intermountain Healthcare. This has given us the ability to be in contact with other providers on a daily basis to coordinate care.
Recently, President Obama recognized Intermountain Healthcare as a model of care. It was said that "Much of the rest of the country tends to focus on the volumes of healthcare services they provide, because that is what the system rewards, rather than the care that's necessary to help the patient. In Intermountaion Healthcare and in Utah we focus on evidence-based medicine and we're more able to provide only the services our patients need"(Obama Singles Out Intermountain Healthcare as Model System). Much of this ability to provide only services that are needed by the patient is due, in great part, to our availability of informatics technology.
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=7873613
Module 1 assignment
Why do you as a graduate level nurse need to know about informaiton management?
As a doctorate level NP, information management is essential to the care of our patients. Module one introduces us to the importance of using information systems/technology to support and improve patient care and healthcare systems and provide leadership within healthcare systems and/or academic setings (AACN, 2006 page 12-13). As providers, we must be able to quickly access information, link that information to our patients needs and maintain organization of that information. In our work as healthcare professionals, we are confronted with computers and many computer applications on a daily basis. This technology provides us with the tools for acquisition, preparation and distribution of medical data and knowledge (Imhoff et al, 2001).
With each patient encounter, I access information such as medication lists, allergy lists, trends in vital signs and weight, lab reports and results of tests and imaging. I am also able to access the clinical notes of other providers, hospital encounters, referrals and message logs. This is so important to coordinate care of each patient. Many of my patients have complex medical histories and it is imperative that all of the patients providers have access to the same information and be able to access it quickly.
Entering information related to each encounter of each patient can be a long process at times. However, this information charting is essential in maintaining organization and continuity of care.
AACN. (2006) Essential #4. The Essentials of Doctoral Eduction for Advanced Nursing Practice, page 12-13.
Imhoff, M.A., Webb, A., & Goldschmidt, A. (2001). Health Informatics. Intensive Care Med, 27, 179-186.
As a doctorate level NP, information management is essential to the care of our patients. Module one introduces us to the importance of using information systems/technology to support and improve patient care and healthcare systems and provide leadership within healthcare systems and/or academic setings (AACN, 2006 page 12-13). As providers, we must be able to quickly access information, link that information to our patients needs and maintain organization of that information. In our work as healthcare professionals, we are confronted with computers and many computer applications on a daily basis. This technology provides us with the tools for acquisition, preparation and distribution of medical data and knowledge (Imhoff et al, 2001).
With each patient encounter, I access information such as medication lists, allergy lists, trends in vital signs and weight, lab reports and results of tests and imaging. I am also able to access the clinical notes of other providers, hospital encounters, referrals and message logs. This is so important to coordinate care of each patient. Many of my patients have complex medical histories and it is imperative that all of the patients providers have access to the same information and be able to access it quickly.
Entering information related to each encounter of each patient can be a long process at times. However, this information charting is essential in maintaining organization and continuity of care.
AACN. (2006) Essential #4. The Essentials of Doctoral Eduction for Advanced Nursing Practice, page 12-13.
Imhoff, M.A., Webb, A., & Goldschmidt, A. (2001). Health Informatics. Intensive Care Med, 27, 179-186.
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