Tami H. Wyatt

Covering models and optimization techniques for emergency response facility location and planning: a review

With emergencies being, unfortunately, part of our lives, it is crucial to efficiently plan and allocate emergency response facilities that deliver effective and timely relief to people most in need. Emergency Medical Services (EMS) allocation problems deal with locating EMS facilities among potential sites to provide efficient and effective services over a wide area with spatially distributed demands. It is often problematic due to the intrinsic complexity of these problems. This paper reviews covering models and optimization techniques for emergency response facility location and planning in the literature from the past few decades, while emphasizing recent developments. We introduce several typical covering models and their extensions ordered from simple to complex, including Location Set Covering Problem (LSCP), Maximal Covering Location Problem (MCLP), Double Standard Model (DSM), Maximum Expected Covering Location Problem (MEXCLP), and Maximum Availability Location Problem (MALP) models. In addition, recent developments on hypercube queuing models, dynamic allocation models, gradual covering models, and cooperative covering models are also presented in this paper. The corresponding optimization techniques to solve these models, including heuristic algorithms, simulation, and exact methods, are summarized.

Smartphones in nursing education.

Smartphones are a new technology similar to PDAs but with expanded functions and greater Internet access. This article explores the potential uses and issues surrounding the use of smartphones in nursing education. While the functions of smartphones, such as sending text messages, viewing videos, and access to the Internet, may seem purely recreational, they can be used within the nursing curriculum to engage students and reinforce learning at any time or location. Smartphones can be used for quick access to educational materials and guidelines during clinical, class, or clinical conference. Students can review instructional videos prior to performing skills and readily reach their clinical instructor via text message. Downloadable applications, subscriptions, and reference materials expand the smartphone functions even further. Common concerns about requiring smartphones in nursing education include cost, disease transmission, and equipment interference; however, there are many ways to overcome these barriers and provide students with constant access to current clinical evidence.

The effect of reflective writing interventions on the critical thinking skills and dispositions of baccalaureate nursing students

BACKGROUND The importance of critical thinking is well-documented by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing and the National League for Nursing. Reflective writing is often used to increase understanding and analytical ability. The lack of empirical evidence about the effect of reflective writing interventions on critical thinking supports the examination of this concept. OBJECTIVES Study objectives were: DESIGN This study used an experimental, pretest-posttest design. SETTINGS The setting was two schools of nursing at universities in the southern United States. PARTICIPANTS The convenience sample included 70 fourth-semester students in baccalaureate nursing programs. METHODS Randomly assigned control and experimental groups completed the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST) and the California Critical Thinking Dispositions Inventory Test (CCTDI). The experimental group completed six reflective writing assignments. Both groups completed the two tests again. RESULTS Results showed that the experimental group had a significant increase (p=0.03) on the truthseeking subscale of the CCTDI when compared to the control group. The experimental groups scores increased on four CCTST subscales and were higher than the control groups on three CCTST subscales. CONCLUSIONS The results of this study make it imperative for nursing schools to consider including reflective writing-especially assignments based on Pauls (1993) model-in nursing courses. If future studies, testing over longer periods of time, show significant increases in critical thinking, those interventions could be incorporated into nursing curriculum and change the way nurse educators evaluate students.

For faculty, by faculty: A case study of learning to teach online

The shortage of nursing faculty and the need for MSN-prepared faculty to have access to doctoral education and remain in their teaching roles has resulted in a growing number of nurse education programs moving online. A better understanding of how best to support faculty during this transition is needed. This case study describes the experiences of faculty at one institution as they participated in a grassroots effort to learn about online teaching. Six themes related to the faculty development experience were identified: 1) plugging in; 2) peer sharing, modeling and community building; 3) multidimensional learning; 4) role-shifting and meta-learning; 5) paradigm shifting; and 6) sustaining momentum. Findings are connected to recommendations related to how best to prepare faculty to ensure that quality nursing education continues.

Using Focus Groups for Program Planning and Evaluation

School nurses often find themselves developing health-related programs for children and adolescents. One way to create compelling and interesting programs that meet the needs of students is to include them in the planning, development, and evaluation of such programs through focus groups. Children provide a perspective about their particular needs, interests, and understandings that cannot be obtained from adults or health care professionals. When children take part in program planning, the programs become more appealing to children because of the feedback from their perspective. This article describes ways focus groups can be used to examine the effectiveness and usability of health-related programs. Included is a discussion of the pros and cons of using focus groups with school-age children for planning and evaluating programs and guidelines for conducting focus groups.

Increasing Nursing Treatment for Pediatric Procedural Pain

Procedural pain management is an underused practice in children. Despite the availability of efficacious treatments, many nurses do not provide adequate analgesia for painful interventions. Complementary therapies and nonpharmacologic interventions are additionally essential to managing pain. Owing to the increasing awareness of inadequate nursing utilization of pharmacologic measures for procedural pain, this paper focuses only on analgesic treatments. The aim of this review was to examine how varying degrees of quality improvement affect nursing utilization of treatments for routine pediatric procedural pain. A comprehensive search of databases including Cinahl, Medline/Pubmed, Web of Science, Google Scholar, Psycinfo, and Cochrane Library was performed. Sixty-two peer-reviewed research articles were examined. Ten articles focusing on quality improvement in pediatric pain management published in English from 2001 to 2011 were included. Three themes emerged: 1) increasing nursing knowledge; 2) nursing empowerment; and 3) protocol implementation. Research critique was completed with the use of guidelines and recommendations from Creswell (2009) and Garrard (2011). The literature reveals that nurses still think that pediatric pain management is essential. Quality improvement increases nursing utilization of procedural pain treatments. Although increasing nursing knowledge improves pediatric pain management, it appears that nursing empowerment and protocol implementation increase nursing compliance more than just education alone. Nurses providing pain management can enhance their individual practice with quality improvement measures that may increase nursing adherence to institutional and nationally recommended pediatric procedural pain management guidelines.

Enhancing Children's Health Through Digital Story

Stories in all of their many forms, including books, plays, skits, movies, poems, and songs, appeal to individuals of all ages but especially the young. Children are easily engaged in stories, and todays generation of children, the millennium generation, demands interactive, multimedia-rich environments. Story as a teaching and learning technique is pervasive in the classroom but is infrequently used to promote health. Because of advancing technology, it is possible to create interactive digital storytelling programs that teach children health topics. Using digital storytelling in an interactive environment to promote health has not been tested, but there is empirical support for using story in health education and interactive technology to promote health. This article briefly reviews the literature and discusses how technology and storytelling can be joined to promote positive health outcomes.

A Faculty Development Program for Nurse Educators Learning to Teach Online

As the College of Nursing at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville prepared to move their graduate programs online, a nursing faculty grass-roots movement led to the implementation of a faculty development program. This instructional design portfolio describes the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of this program, with the goal of identifying best practices in the design of programs for learning to teach online.These include understanding the importance of just-in-time learning, developing the ability to meet diverse needs, defining workshop expectations and workload requirements, increased integration of technology and pedagogy training, and the importance of modeling.

Testing Computer-Based Simulation to Enhance Clinical Judgment Skills in Senior Nursing Students

Expert clinical judgment is the culmination of knowledge and experiential learning that includes reflections on immediate problems and past experience. In nursing education, experiential learning is augmented through the use of simulated clinical experiences provided in simulation laboratories. Various simulations have been reported; however, few studies target the effectiveness of experiential learning using a computer-based simulation available to the individual user. An educational intervention based on Kolbs Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) is examined in this pilot study, to determine the feasibility of conducting a future larger-scale research project on the effectiveness of ELT in enhancing development of clinical judgment skills.

Developing iCare v.1.0: an academic electronic health record.

An electronic health record application, iCare v.1.0, was developed and tested that allows data input and retrieval while tracking student performance over time. The development and usability testing of iCare v.1.0 followed a rapid prototyping software development and testing model. Once the functionality was tested by engineers, the usability and feasibility testing began with a convenience sample of focus group members including undergraduate and graduate students and faculty. Three focus groups were created, and four subjectsparticipated in each focus group (n = 12). Nielsen’s usability heuristics and methods of evaluation were used to evaluate data captured from each focus group. Overall, users wanted a full-featured electronic health record with features that coached or guided users. The earliest versions of iCare v.1.0 did not provide help features and prompts to guide students but were later added. Future versions will incorporate a full-featured help section. The interface and design of iCare v.1.0 are similar to professional electronic health record applications. As a result of this usability study, future versions of iCare will include more robust help features along with advanced reporting and elements specific to specialty populations such as pediatrics and mental health services.