Crest Haven Neighborhood Recipe Swap: Green Smoothies

Crest Haven Neighborhood Recipe Swap: Green Smoothies: "My kids love green smoothies. They came home from Konnie's house one day very excited about them. (Konnie likes to make popsicles out of the..."

Module 6 Entry

This week I was able to understand the relationship between. regulation, accreditation, and reimbursement.  In practice we will need to follow the regulations, such as HIPAA, and remain accredited with organizations such as Joint Commission, Medicaid and Medicare if we are interested in receiving reimbursement four our services.

I also appreciated the reminders for computer safety and security.  It is important to review these concepts, because if I don't, I become lax, and I will make a costly, time consuming mistake with my computer.

Module 5 Entry

The readings this week reminded me that my own expert intuition is important, but it is biased and incomplete without utilizing clinical decision systems (CDSs).  Clinical decision systems help to protect patient safety, and help the practitioner to use as Kahneman says, system II thinking (reasoning).  That is how the nurse practitioner can avoid intuition bias.  I realize, also, that I cannot rely solely on CDSs, rather it is a blend of my expert clinical experience and CDS utilization that will yield the best patient outcomes.

Module 4 Entry

In my professional role as a future nurse practitioner, I will be teaching patients, support staff, mentoring students, mentoring new graduates, community members, and community leaders.  I will be teaching health promotion, disease prevention, medication regimen, and epidemiology, to name a few subjects.  I can teach these topics using a variety of technological modalities, such as slide presentations, web pages, podcasts, vodcasts, YouTube, social networking sites, emailing, and of course, blogging.  I can utilize patient information on the web, simulator software, and recommend reputable pre-existing websites.  In the future, I would love to teach nursing students.  I cannot think of any nursing or health care provider that does not include teaching in one way or another.

Below, is a link to the mobile device wiki created for fellow students of Nursing 6004.
http://editthis.info/nurs_6004_mobile_devices/Main_Page

Module 3 Entry

In this module, I learned a lot about information retrieval.  First, I used CINAHL, which is an index to research my clinical problem.  I found it very user friendly, and found it intuitive to search using Boolean phrases.  It was easy to focus my search using PICO as my guide (Patient/Problem, Intervention, Comparison, and Outcome.)  I was comfortable with this source, because CINAHL is highly recommended, and I found references from academic, peer reviewed journal articles.  I next referenced the National Guideline Clearing House, and found various guideline syntheses of research regarding my clinical problem.  Two areas I found especially helpful were area of agreement and difference; and comparison of recommendations.  I was comfortable utilizing this source because it is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  Lastly, I conducted searches using the web search engines, Google Scholar and Google.  On Google Scholar, I found scholarly articles, but most of them were too old to be considered relevant.  My Google search identified newer information, but most of the sources were questionable, and I would not feel comfortable using them in my practice.  In my future practice, I will include electronic indices, such as PubMed, CINAHL, and other scholarly indices, along with the National Guideline Clearing House so that I can include evidence based guidelines when treating my patients.

Module 2 Entry

Now that I am learning how to blog, the applications I can dream up are limitless!  In my free time, I love to think about ways I can use the blog to contribute to health promotion and disease prevention in my community.  I am new to almost every form of technology (and a little bit afraid, as well).  As a distance student, I have been forced to embrace technology.  I realize that it is the only way to be a competent practitioner.

            As I mentioned earlier, I am on a leave of absence from a free-standing infusion center and pharmacy that also administers IV infusions in the home.  Nursing uses paper charting exclusively.  I could discuss the virtues of a paperless documentation system with my director of nursing.  Since nurses work on-site, and in the patients' homes, I think that a secure web-based program would work well for nursing documentation.  While at the patients' homes, nurses could enter information via a laptop computer.  I think that the program should be able to communicate with the pharmacy in order to streamline the patients' medication reconciliation, which has to be completed with every patient visit (per Joint Commission mandate).  The pharmacist would also have access to the nursing assessment, in order to complete pharmacy documentation.  The program should be able to communicate with the billing department.  With correct coding, billing would not have to be completed by numerous office staff, and billing would not have to wait until the end of the month.  Lastly, the program should be able to communicate with hospitals in order to streamline lab results, discharge summaries and discharge instructions.  Currently, lab results are faxed, and nursing transcribes lab results into a separate program, line by line, requiring nursing time, and the possibility of transcription errors.

            Well fellow colleagues, it is nice to read your posts, and get to know you better.  Keep up the good work!

My First Post for Module 1

Hello, everyone!  I am K. Baron.  I am in my third semester of the distance DNP program to become a family nurse practitioner.  I have 7 children, and 5 grandchildren.  I have 2 children still living at home.  I enjoy walking and cooking for my family.  I love to prepare gourmet meals, but lately I have been embracing preparing quick, healthy meals that taste great.  I enjoy walking outside around the potato and wheat farms of my neighborhood in Rexburg, Idaho.  I have nursing experience in ER, NICU, and most recently IV infusions.  I am currently on a leave of absence from my employer, so that I can put more time toward my family and my studies.

            I think it is important for a graduate level nurse to know about information management, because information technology helps the nurse to effectively manage the practice.  Information technology can help the nurse to identify trends in disease and health promotion practices within the practice, and the nurse can compare the trends to community and nation-wide information.  Information technology can help the nurse practitioner to give better care to the patient by monitoring the patient closely, scheduling needed appointments, coordinating diagnostic data, and by providing the correct education to the patient to promote healthier self-care.  Information technology, such as social networking is useful as an inexpensive way to market the practice while delivering patient education.

            In the practice setting that I have last worked (a free-standing infusion center, and home infusions), staff nurses had very little interaction with information technology.  One of the infusions the nurses administered was on the fast track with the FDA, so the nurses would do data entry for an outside company that reported infusion results back to the FDA.  Nursing leadership within the company uses MS Office, Adobe Acrobat, and Windows media.  The pharmacists have a separate program that stores patient data such as medications, labs, and allergies.  It also generates orders and labels for the pharmacy.

            The distance program has been difficult for me because I don't feel the routine connection with other students that takes place in the classroom.  I know that attending distance is a blessing, because I cannot relocate to go to school.  I think this experience with social networking will increase that sense of connectedness that I am missing from the classroom.  I am excited to share and follow my fellow classmates' blogs.  I am interested in gaining blogging experience, so that I may use it in my practice.

"See" you in cyberspace!