Module 2

What is one way you could become involved in designing, selecting, evaluating, or implementing an information system in your workplace?

In my own work place I can visualize several areas that nurses would be helpful in selecting an IS. Knowing our patient culture consists of we would be able to indicate prevalent areas to implement in the design. We have customers who have diabetes, who self harm, who have particular issues with medications. These could be discussed with the nursing staff in order to implement designated areas to identify potential or actual problems.  Nurses know their environment and patient needs. If the IS is not user friendly or applicable it is of little use to the staff. I worked in an outpatient office that had a system which turned out to be incredibly painstaking and convoluted. After several thousands of dollars spent the system was scrapped. It was of no use to us for our purpose.

Hawkins Journal Mod 1

What is your experience with social networking or social media in your clinical or practice setting?

Why would a patient or family want to create a blog?

Why would a health care organization or individual health care provider create a blog?

My clinical practice experience with social networking or social medial is very limited. We use a computer system sparingly. Our social network is an Intranet accessible for education, assessing payroll, or personal updating for educational purposes or addressing surveys from the company. We have an email system but this is limited to supervisory staff. Our clinical communication network is word of mouth or  “The Loop” a paper newsletter the company sends out every Monday.  

I followed family blog created for their six-year-old child undergoing treatment for cancer. The family routinely updated their daughters’ procedures and progress including many fun times in her life. People from all over the country, friends, family and staff that provided her care were able to play an active part in her expedition. Everyone involved was able to offer inspiration and encouragement through this blog. It was very comforting to the family as well as those whose lives were touch by this young lady because of her sweetness and strength. I recently found out that her treatment was unsuccessful but I was blessed to have had glimpses and interaction with her and her family during her brief and courageous journey.

A health care organization or individual health care provider may use a blog to maintain or share information about that facility and their product. They can provide educational information such as techniques and health care information to the public. For the advanced practice nurse the use of informatics is important to better educate clients of their disease or mental health issues. Using valid evidence based information from credible websites is informative and very useful to the layman. Examples of this could be the Mayo Clinic, Web MD, or The World Health Organization blogs such as www.famish.org/World_Health_Organization/blogs.html created for the public to  become involved and possibly join in education or causes. Other useful blogs may include social networks such as NAMI, The Cancer Institute, The American Diabetes Association, and others like these as support systems for people who have an illness’ making an easy out reach to others for encouragement or education.

absolute threshold

Why I chose AbsoluteThreshold as my blog tag
As a Psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner (PMHNP) it is my hope that I will "be the smallest detectable level of stimulus" for my clients. In my opinion the practice of mental health healing is the client is the most important person in the room. We are but guides riding along side our clients as we travel through their journey to recovery and self discovery.

Definition:
The term absolute threshold is often used in neuroscience and experimental research. An absolute threshold is the smallest detectable level of a stimulus. For example, in an experiment on sound detention, researchers may present a sound with varying levels of volume. The smallest level that a participant is able to hear is the absolute threshold.
However, it is important to note that at such low levels, participants may only detect the stimulus part of the time. Because of this, theabsolute threshold is usually defined as the smallest level of a stimulus that a person is able to detect 50 percent of the time.
Cherry, K. What is absolute threshold? retrieved May 17, 2011 from psychology.about.com/od/glossaryfromatoz/g/absolutethresh.htm,

Hawkins-Marie Module I-Introduction

Hi, I'm Marie Hawkins from Boise, Idaho
Study: Psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner
Why I need information management. To have a successful practice in today’s world it is important to be technologically savvy. Nearly all our information is performed through the computer. Our online education is a great example of technological management. Although I am not very savvy in this tech world I’m finding that it is imperative I learn. In order to build my business as a practitioner, organize quality record keeping, and networking with my colleges is dire. I need to learn how to use technology proficiently in order to save time, be organized and communicate in my professional and personal world.
Currently at my workplace all patient record keeping and basic communication is done on paper. We are not using computer technology for any patient care. We do use the computer for education purposes for staffing only. I am of an age I feel more safe with paper and pen, however, our world is vastly closing the “pages” to that method of communication and information gathering.

Must read

thepsychologist.org.uk

A brand new day

Hi, my name is Marie Hawkins. I live in Boise, Idaho and work at Intermountain Hospital a psychiatric mental health hospital. I've been an RN for 20 years, started my career in Seattle at Harborview Medical Center Burn Unit. Nursing was not my first professional health care choice until I realized I could do more to help heal as a nurse than I could in medicine. Over the years I have been a strong advocate for higher education for nurses. When I met my educational crossroad I knew it was time to make a decision what path to take in the final lag of my professional nursing career. Over the years I've been blessed to have worked in several specialty of nursing arenas and found that psychiatric care has been a consistent foundation to my practice. While working as a "floor nurse" I gravitated toward patients with mental health disorders and pediatric patients. These two patient types were not the favorites of most nurses so I had both the pleasure and opportunity to offer my gift of nursing to them. And now, I can take it all to a higher level one that I am looking forward to for the remainder of my nursing career.