Part 1

1. Moving Data to Wisdom

Reflect on the content from your readings and this week's lesson. Then, think of a recent experience and describe how you mentally moved data through the stages of information and knowledge to wisdom. What information system(s) helped you move from data to wisdom?

Keep this short like assessing a patient for congestive heart failure. How did you evaluate and combine the various pieces of data? What was the outcome of this process?

2. AACN Essentials Self-Assessment Results

Complete your Self-Assessment of the AACN Essentials located in Doc Sharing (Week 1). Note your total score. If you are willing, please share your total score with your classmates. Identify areas where your knowledge is lacking. Keep in mind that we are all "knowledge workers." What areas of inquiry do you have as they relate to the essentials?

Part 2

1. Experiences with Healthcare Information Systems

Share your experiences with healthcare information systems in your clinical setting. What are the pros and cons of patient care? If you are not currently working, think about your experiences as a consumer of healthcare services, keeping in mind that they are all around us regardless of where we obtain our own healthcare.

2. Helping Aunt Mary

Your Aunt Mary is elderly and lives alone. She just returned from a visit with her primary care physician. She noticed today that Dr. Alice did not bring a chart into the exam room. Instead, she had a little computer. Aunt Mary is upset. She does not understand this new technology as it relates to her healthcare. What key concepts about EHRs would you include in an informal teaching plan for Aunt Mary?

Part 3

1. Opportunities for Improvement with Usability and Interoperability

Usability and interoperability are major issues to consider in the development of healthcare information systems (HIS). How does your organization address these issues? Does the transfer of information occur smoothly, or do you need to re-enter data from one application to the next-such as patient information from the emergency room that does not transfer-along with the patient who is admitted to the critical care unit? Or what happens when the patient is discharged and the home care nurses have to start from scratch as they prepare the patient's plan of care?

2. Library Search for Telenursing Resources

This week's lesson points out key concepts in searching the National Library of Medicine's PubMed/MEDLINE database, the Chamberlain Library's EBSCO/CINAHL database, and Google Scholar. This week's lesson directs you to links and resources on the basics of searching these three information sources. The tutorials are very helpful. You are strongly urged to view them prior to posting.

Locate one article in each of the data sources to prepare your scholarly paper due during Week 4's Telenursing: The Future Is Now. Briefly summarize each article in your post.

Part 4

1. Meaningful Use in Your Workplace

Meaningful Use is part of the EHR requirements targeted for completion in 2014. Meaningful Use was created in order to capture the right data to improve patient outcomes.

With this in mind, how can you as a nurse ensure that Meaningful Use is being implemented into the EHR? If you were the nurse manager, how would you implement this documentation and ensure buy-in by your staff?

2. Your Patient Has a Personal Health Record (PHR)...Now What

You are the nurse in a busy family practice clinic. A new patient presents with a personal health record (PHR). This is the first time that you have encountered a PHR. What are the advantages to PHRs? What are ways that you may access the patient's PHR? What may be some obstacles that you encounter?

Part 5

1. Uses of Standardized Nursing Terminology

From your practice standpoint, what have you read this week in your text or in the lesson that offered a new view or appreciation for standardized terminology? Be specific.

2. Documentation and Reimbursement

What is the impact of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) payment denial on the healthcare system, and what are the implications for our nursing practice related to documentation?

Part 6

1. Nursing Gains Visibility

The repeated sound of an alarm can be annoying to the patient, family, and staff. This can lead to someone shutting off the alarm. Give an example of an ethical or legal issue that may arise if a patient has a poor outcome or sentinel event because an alarm was turned off. What do the data show about the value of alarms in general? Is alarm fatigue an issue?

2. Alarms-What Do the Data Show

The repeated sound of an alarm can be annoying to the patient, family, and staff. This can lead to someone shutting off the alarm. Give an example of an ethical or legal issue that may arise if a patient has a poor outcome or sentinel event because an alarm was turned off. What do the data show about the value of alarms in general? Is alarm fatigue an issue?

Part 7

1. Use of Personal Communication Devices in Patient Care Settings

How can the use of the nurse's personal communication devices impact patient care either positively or negatively? Are there ethical and legal implications? Locate an article and share a brief summary of that article with your classmates.

2. Safe Nursing Care Is There an App for That

Andrea was working in the cardiac catheterization lab when a young woman undergoing a cardiac ablation started to have small seizures. The nurse noticed these symptoms and asked the physician to look at the patient. The physician asked Andrea to get his smart phone and film the seizures. This video message was sent to a neurologist, and he could tell from the video the part of the brain from which the seizures were emanating. This is one example of using technology. Does this count as safe care? Is there an app for that?

If you could develop an app to enhance safe nursing care, what would it be like?

Part 8

Prior to posting, complete the Week 8 AACN Essentials Self-Assessment located in Doc Sharing. Compare your scores from Part1 to part 8. How far have you come? How much further do you wish to go in furthering your competencies during the next 2 years of practice?