Module 7 Question#4 Professional and Personal Influence

The content of this course as previously mentioned has influenced and will continue to influence my personal and professional life by not only the computer literacy abilities that it has provided but increased confidence in my computer skills. All of the learning that took place with each module from creating a blog to researching on line will be invaluable to me as parent, a practitioner, a healthcare provider and an educator.

Module 7 Questin#3 Least applicable content

The content area and technology that is least applicable to either my professional practice or personal life is difficult to assess because most of the information was either new or being used informally without a specific purpose or label. Therefore I don’t believe that I won’t use at least a fragment of each module in my everyday life personally or professionally.

Module 7 Question# 2 Content Integration

The content area and technology that I plan on integrating into my personal life is to continue to utilize all the computer skills that I have learned and were necessary to even navigate this course. I started at some very basic computer skills and have improved my computer literacy with each module and assignment.

The content area and technology that I would like to utilize more in my professional life is Healthcare Information Systems. I would like to be able to incorporate a system ideal for a private office setting that could include electronic charting, medication reminders, and patient follow-up and diagnostic capabilities individually significant to a patient’s profile. Ethically I will be faced with ensuring a secure and protected system that will protect my patient’s privacy.

module #7 post

Module 7 Question#1 MOST INTERESTING CONTENT

During the IT course the content area that I found most interesting was Module 3 Information Retrieval. This was probably most interesting to me because I feel it will be the most valuable for clinical practice and evidence based medicine. I also feel it will be very useful for my capstone project to aid in literature searches and professional organization of my topic and presentation. I even took an endnote class and used endnote to retrieve and organize my reference list of articlesfor this module. However I must add that Information Support Systems obviously are an easier way to quickly access information for clinical practice but information retrieval will always be necessary for documentation and validation.

Nursing data and decision support

Module 5 blog question #2

Available evidenced based nursing data is not only important for decision making and quality health care but can also justify intangible nursing functions. Nursing care is often difficult to justify, bill for and or receive credibility due to the “hand holding image” that it frequently is perceived as. I believe that nursing data that supports clinical decisions and specific nursing functions and diagnosis can also improve the image of the profession where nurses are caring individuals making critical decisions based upon scientific evidence.

Clinical decision making Module #5

Module 5 question# 1

The clinical decision support readings definitely made me aware of how I make a lot of my clinical decisions. I definitely draw on experiential knowledge when I make clinical decisions. I realize that this knowledge is helpful and is not all bad, but that there is another dimension of knowledge to be utilized. The 5 typology medical categories of physician types of uncertainty do apply to nurse practitioner care, but is only the tip of the iceberg when compared to the uncertainties that apply to my philosophical approach as a nurse. For example, when prescribing a medication I certainly want to utilize the best evidence based data regarding the effectiveness, dosage and side effects, but then rely on experiential knowledge regarding taste, ease of administration, cost and patients ability to pay. However this experiential knowledge also could be evidenced based practice that isn’t always recognized as critical to the outcome, but the right medicine not being administered or not affordable ultimately does affect the final results. This is where quality nursing data could be invaluable and incorporate nursing interventions based upon research and evidenced based practice.

As a seasoned nurse practitioner this literature also made me recognize that I frequently do utilize heuristics in making clinical decisions. I often use an approach of what has worked from patient feedback, a seminar I may have attended or a drug representative presentation. I then rationalize that this must be the best clinical decision because it has worked in the past.

Personally for me to reconcile the clinical decision gap between heuristics and biases used in human decision making is to be more committed to an evidenced based practice by utilizing the research available to me through the skills I have acquired to access and retrieve the information more efficiently. I can no longer use the excuse that the practice I am employed by doesn’t value the use of technology or provide available resources. It is up to me to be proactive and fundamental that I lead the way to achieve this goal.

Module 6 blog

If my practice were to get a new information system I feel my participation due to my limited experience in IT would probably be evaluating or just test driving already available systems versus being in on the ground floor of planning, analysis and design. I know this is probably a “wimp” way out, but currently being in a practice that doesn’t even have the basics such as electronic charting I need to start at the basics.Therefore the life cycle component where I would be most likely be involved is usability, including ease of implementation.