Module 1, Question 2

IT is affecting me in two different ways. The first is in my clinical practice setting, which is in labor and delivery. The second is in the teaching field. And, of course, there will be an overlap of the two.

We, in L/D are very lucky to have the ability to chart on "the strip." For those not familiar, we run a strip of the baby's heart rate and the mom's contractions. It's like charting on an EKG strip. About a year and a half ago, we switched charting systems. We used to have a great, user-friendly system that was all-inclusive for our needs. We still have a strip system, but it has very limited capabilities. We now have 5 (that I can think of) different and separate systems that we have to know in order to handle all the potential info on our patients. This includes knowing all the different acronyms that the systems go by and having that many different passwords just to get into them. Our readings mentioned that in order for info systems to work, they have to be "intuitive." I think that's why our unit has had such a hard time transitioning from our old system to the new ones: because we went from an intuitive system to a non-intuitive one. We went from a system that made perfect sense to us, as L/D nurses to one that doesn't.

I think patient care is affected in a negative way due to these changes because there is too much time wasted on double charting, for example. I think the time wasted in fiddling with these inefficient systems takes away from patient care. Also, our old system provided us a way to easily track all admissions on each patient. Our current system makes this much more difficult.

I think IT can improve patient outcomes by decreasing mistakes and sharing info between providers, but on our unit, I think the technology that our company chose is making our lives harder.

As far as teaching nursing goes, I have one word: WIMBA.

OK, I don't just have one word concerning teaching nursing. We now have the capability of showing students moving fetal heart rate tracings from our computers, in the classroom, for them to study and analyze. Pretty cool.

Module1, Question 1

Introduce myself: OK, my name is Rieneke (pronounced Renika) and I am a grad student in the Teaching Nursing program. I am going full-time and am currently in my second semester of 4. I have been a labor and delivery nurse for 11 years and my ultimate goal is to teach undergrads maternity nursing. I love teaching and I love L/D, so I think it's great that I can combine the two.

As far as knowing about information management, I decided it's important for everyone, not just grad-level nurses to know about it. Like our readings mentioned, there is so much information generated in the health care system, alone, that improving technology is the only way to realistically handle it all. On the unit where I currently work, we have a few nurses that have been around for about 30 years, and the majority of them are AD RN's. They too, have had to adjust to the technology as it has advanced. We recently changed computer charting systems, which was a difficult adjustment, even to the computer-savvy nurses, let alone to the ones that are not. My point to all this is that everyone, from AD nurses to grad nurses need to be familiar with the changing technology and information management.

For me, personally, in my upcoming role, knowledge of info management is hugely important. Education is quickly drifting from "traditional, in-the-classroom" to "asynchronous, on-line". In order to participate in this new style of teaching, I will have to be familiar with all the technology it entails.

Just for fun!

Being that I am in the Teaching Nursing program, I thought this was kind of funny. I also thought the instructors might appreciate it. As if tenure just falls into your lap. And once you get it, all your problems are solved! p.s. This is not my post for module 1.