1) What Is Nursing Informatics?

Discuss ways that nursing informatics could be applied to all areas of professional nursing practice, including clinical practice, administration, education, and research. Provide examples of each. What do you see as the biggest significance of nursing informatics, and why?

2) Technology Literacy and Electronic Health Records (EHR)

What are your experiences with using an electronic information system (EHR)? Describe the components of an EHR, and using the assigned readings, any past experiences or observations, and your imagination, share your thoughts on the following question: Can you give one pro and one con of an EHR with regard to enhancing patient care and safety? Include rationale for each. How do you see the EHR enhancing patient health literacy?

3) Ethical Implications of Social Media and Personal Technology

For this discussion, we will consider the use of social media and personal technology. What are the legal and ethical implications, if any? Why or why not?

4) Choose one of the following scenarios to research, locate a credible article, and discuss the ethical and legal implications related to the use of social media and/or personal technology associated with each.

a) Your best friend, a nurse, posts the following on Facebook, on her day off, and from her home computer: "What a crazy day at work yesterday! I met the cutest little old man from my street! I really cannot believe he is 98 years old and still sharp as a tack! He made me laugh when he said he wanted a prescription for Viagra, and I think he was serious! He really made my day when he said that he thought I was the prettiest nurse on the unit!"

b) A work colleague in the obstetrics department has a public nursing blog, and her latest entry states that she had the "most difficult time at work caring for the mother of a baby that had died due to abuse-related injuries, and she is here now to have another child." Her post goes on to say that she and her husband have had problems conceiving, and anyone who abuses a child should be automatically sterilized or be forced to give the child up for adoption.

c) You are on break for lunch, sitting outside in the beautiful sunshine, when you see a car pull up to the main entrance of the hospital where you are a nurse. Out steps your favorite professional football player, along with his wife. She looks as though she has been punched in the face, considering the bruises, black eye, and swollen lip that you see. You grab your smartphone, quickly snap some photos, and then tweet them to your followers on Twitter.

5) Healthcare Technology: Local, National, and Global Considerations

Imagine that you are a public health nurse, and you and your colleagues have determined that the threat of a deadly new strain of influenza indicates a need for a mass inoculation program in your community. What public health data would have been used to determine the need for such a program? Where would you locate public health data? What data will be collected to determine the success of such a program? How might you communicate this to other communities or internationally?

6) Meaningful Use and Its Implications on Healthcare

Explore health information technology for the future of healthcare. Select a reading about meaningful use or another topic of interest to you. What types of questions does this bring to mind regarding safety, privacy, and confidentiality? Can we have a system of meaningful use in a community, nationally, or internationally and yet still maintain the HIPAA standards?