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.