Paula M. Procter

Prescription for nursing informatics in pre-registration nurse education

Nurses need to be able to use information and communications technology not only to support their own practice, but also to help their patients make best use of it. This article argues that nurses are not currently adequately prepared to work with information and technology through their pre-registration education. Reflecting the lack of nursing informatics expertise, it is recommended that all pre-registration nursing programmes should have access to a nursing informatics specialist. A prescription to meet the informatics needs of the newly qualified nurse is proposed. This places the areas that need to be included in pre-registration education into broad groups that both articulate the competencies that nurses need to develop, and indicate why they are needed, rather than providing context-free checklists of skills. This is presented as a binary scatter chart with two axes, skill to knowledge and technology to information.

Studying Health Information from a Distance: The Impact of a Multimedia Case Study:

This paper describes a project to enhance the learning experience of students, in which a multimedia healthcare case study and associated tasks are being developed and evaluated within the Distance Learning MSc in Health Informatics programme at the University of Sheffield. The paper provides background context and motivation for the case study, followed by a description of its content, which is based upon a general practice change management scenario. The way in which this material was researched and developed is reviewed, covering rationale, methodology and the strategy for evaluation. Early evaluation suggests that the introduction of the case study is having a positive effect on the problem of isolation experienced by students on distance learning courses. The paper also reflects on the overheads of this project. Those with substantial experience in computer-assisted learning should be involved at an early stage, and planning and sequencing of both the case study itself and between the case study and the course should be given attention. The paper concludes that benefits of the approach are significant, and include better integration of course modules, shared decision making and group problem solving.

Social media and population health virtual exchange for senior nursing students: An international collaboration

The authors have all engaged in using social media with students as a means for collaboration across national and international boundaries for various educational purposes. Following the explosion of big data in health the authors are now moving this concept forward within undergraduate and postgraduate nursing curricula for the development of population health virtual exchanges. Nursing has a global presence and yet it appears as though students have little knowledge of the health and social care needs and provision outside their local environment. This development will allow for explorative exchange amongst students in three countries, enhancing their understanding of their own and the selected international population health needs and solutions through asking and responding to questions amongst the learning community involved. The connection of the students will be recorded for their use in reflection; of particular interest will be the use of information included by the students to answer questions about their locality.

Nursing, Professional Curiosity and Big Data CoCreating eHealth.

This paper describes work that has taken place over the past three years in the form of an annual deep dive study track within a national conference setting. The work explores the changing influence that big data, and in particular population and social determinants of health data, makes upon the generation of co-created eHealth within a nursing domain. Working with delegates, many of whom returned year after year, the paper reports the discussion themes and ideas that evolved over time. The paper is presented as an example of connected reasoning and personal development by all those involved and is offered as a distributed think tank for further discussion and debate.

The shifting sands of nursing informatics education: from content to connectivity

This chapter considers the development of nurse education over the past 50 years and ventures a view towards 2020. A link will be made to the introduction of informatics to nursing curricula. It is clear when looking over the recent history of nurse education that it has moved from a medical model and content driven apprentice mode to that of a reflective agile professional mode where autonomous practice allows for collaboration in care and connectivity between health professionals. Parallel to these pedagogical changes are the introduction of informatics across healthcare, starting with computer skills and moving through information management to decision support. The chapter will conclude with some thoughts around the next possible steps forward for nursing informatics education.

Ubiquitous adoption of innovative and supportive information and communications technology across health and social care needs education for clinicians

The paper presents the development, use and evaluation of an on-line undergraduate module delivering an academic-led programme of eHealth learning within nursing, midwifery, allied health professional and social work courses. The health information technology competency frameworks are explored along with an overview of the resulting module. The need for an academically led module will be made along with a description of the management required to maintain validity of content materials. A review of student evaluations will be presented. In conclusion the positive change in attitude and understanding of academic staff members towards health information technology through the inclusion of the module across all of the undergraduate courses will be explored.

Nursing informatics competencies for entry to practice: the perspective of six countries

Internationally, countries are challenged to prepare nurses for a future that has ever increasing use of technology and where information management is a central part of professional nursing practice. There has been a growing trend to move nursing to competency-based education, especially for those students undertaking their first nursing qualification. This first nursing qualification may be linked to pre-registration, pre-licensure or undergraduate education; the term used depending on the country. The authors are drawn from the International Medical Informatics Association special interest group, Nursing Informatics (IMIA-NI) Education Working Group and represent New Zealand, the United States of America, England, Australia, Finland and Canada.

Big Data in Healthcare: A Wide Look at a Broad Subject

Healthcare, as an industry, is being held accountable for outcomes that were never before considered. No longer is it a fee for service industry but one in which providers are accountable for quality, performance, and satisfaction. How can healthcare utilize the sea of data collected to optimize care for quality, performance, and satisfaction? One answer is to harness the power of that data and to manage the ability to perform meaningful analyses. Clinicians and ancillary providers collect data as they interact with patients each and every day. Data is brought into patient records from laboratories, radiology readings, pathology reports, transfers, and consults where it is integrated and reviewed in order to make informed decisions related to care. Patient and consumer generated data is being gathered and stored on millions of mobile applications or in personal health records. Some patients are passing this data to their care providers for inclusion in care decision-making. Data is coming from external care providers in disparate systems and is passed from one provider to another as patients traverse a trajectory of care that may or may not be seamless. At each juncture, the data is reviewed, updated, and then transferred onto the next provider or caregiver. At some point in the not too distant future, data describing our homes, schools, workplaces, and communities will be considered as these social determinants of health contribute greatly to the overall health of persons and communities. This will encompass data and information describing poverty, employment, food security, housing, education, incarceration and institutionalization, access to care, environment, and literacy. All of this data will need to be extracted from dissimilar storage points, cleaned and transformed for use, and loaded into a storage repository so that clinicians will all be able to gain a fuller picture of how to care better and to delivery that quality.

Social media providing an international virtual elective experience for student nurses

The advances in social media offer many opportunities for developing understanding of different countries and cultures without any implications of travel. Nursing has a global presence and yet it appears as though students have little knowledge of the health and social care needs and provision outside their local environment. Our collaboration across three countries, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and the United States of America, brought the two themes together with the aim of senior student nurses having a communication channel to explore public health issues in each country. Using a closed Facebook™ page, third year undergraduate adult nursing students were invited to take part in a three month pilot study to test the feasibility of virtual collaboration through exchanging public health issues. Here we report upon the collaboration, operation of the social media, and main findings of the study. Three core areas will be reported upon, these being the student’s views of using social media for learning about international perspectives of health, seeing nursing as a global profession and recommendations for future development of this positively reviewed learning technique. To conclude consideration will be given to further development of this work by the collaborative team expanding the countries involved.

Exploring Community Planning Thinking as a Model for Use Case Development.

There are many vetted technical and semantic standards promulgated within the United States and the United Kingdom to operationalize eHealth interoperability in order to improve care outcomes, manage population health, and provide efficient information exchange between providers, services, patients and consumers. However, consideration must be given to the complex real world use cases in which the data and information will be exchanged between a wide variety of interested parties, including the consumer or patient. In many instances, community based use cases need development in order to serve as the model. These use cases can only be accurately described and created by using a wide lens viewpoint such as community-planning engages, which requires that all interested parties be actively involved. This poster will introduce models of community planning that can be developed and led by the Nurse Informatician.