NR 361 Week 1 Graded Discussion Topic: AACN Essentials Self-Assessment
Hello and welcome to the Week 1 of NR361! The focus of this week is on Patient
... [Show More] Care Technologies. The course outcome that guides your learning this week is: Course Outcome 1: Describe patient care technologies as appropriate to address the needs of a diverse patient population. The learning this week is also directly correlated to: Program Outcome 1.
First, post your Introduction in the discussion threads (required but not graded). Please share information others may not know about you. This is our getting to know you section:
Complete the Recommended Reading.
We have 1 Assignment this week:
Please complete the Week 1 AACN Essentials Self-Assessment Prior to participating in the graded discussion, which may be found in Doc Sharing. It is the basis for the threaded discussion for this week. Complete the self-assessment of your current comfort levels and total your score. If you are willing, please share your total score with your classmates in your discussion post. If you prefer to not share you score, that is fine as well.
Post in the Weekly Collaborative Threaded Discussion. Please review the Collaborative Threaded Discussion Rubric available in Doc Sharing. There is only 1 threaded discussion each week, but the requirement for posting is a minimum of 3 times in each graded discussion. The first response to the weekly question is no later than Wednesday night 11:59 pm MT. Post your responses to classmates or instructor by Sunday night. Lastly, please use at least one scholarly source to backup the information posted in your discussion threads.
Identify areas where your knowledge could use improvement. Keep in mind that all professional nurses are knowledge workers. What questions do you have as they relate to nursing informatics and the AACN essentials? I am looking forward to your discussion and comments this week. Let’s have fun with this discussion.
Don't hesitate to contact me any time via email if I can help you in any way. Have a great week.
Initial Response:
In this week’s lesson we are learning that professional nurses in all settings are being called upon to utilize computer skills to obtain and utilize evidence-based practice (CCN, 2016). I’ve been a nurse for 16 years at the Cleveland Clinic and thirteen of those years have been served in the Emergency Department. At this crossroads of my professional career and nursing student career I place myself between the competent and proficient stages according to Patricia Benner’s stages of clinical competence, even with years of experience I would never consider myself an expert. After completing the AACN Essentials Self- Assessment my total score was 31. Instead of looking at the assessment as poor, good, very good, and excellent I replaced them with Benner’s five stages of competency (novice, advanced beginner, competent, proficient, and expert). Before this assessment I did consider myself proficient when it comes to using technology and computer use. However, after giving myself twos in some areas I see there is a need for improvement with continuous education and participating in the development of technology to improve patient safety. Nursing is a profession that provides us opportunities to develop strong leadership skills and IT skills to redesign and reform efforts across the health care system. Knowing that all specialties of nursing will require the use of technology and computer skills, I am also aware that technology is constantly changing and it is difficult to keep up with. According to Carol Huston (2013), “as new technology continues to emerge nurses need to be able to use technology to facilitate mobility, communication, and relationships”. Changes in nursing practice and education include IT skills and competency. This is why it is so important to continuously update your education in the nursing field, especially with continuous education.
References
Chamberlain College of Nursing. (2016). Week 1 Lesson: RN Info Systems in Healthcare [Online lesson]. Downers Grove, IL: Devry Education Group.
Hebda, T., & Czar, P. (2013). Handbook of informatics for nurses & healthcare professionals (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.
Huston, C. (2013). The impact of emerging technology on nursing care: warp speed ahead. The Online of Issues in Nursing, 18(2), 1. doi:10.3912/OJIN.Vol18No02Man01
Response:
Van,
Thank you for your post. Nurses play an essential role in patient's safety where the quality of the nursing environment and electronic documentation has a positive influence on patients. Technologies used by nurses offer the means for preventing errors and adverse events (e.g., medication errors, miscommunication, and delays in treatment). Advances in technology are indeed helping to make life easier for nurses.
Reponse:
Jessica,
I agree with Dr. Glenn this was a wonderful post. I can understand and attest to how IT can be intimidating and challenging to some nurses, especially the expert nurses or the more senior nurses that were use to handwritten notes and orders. I can recall an incident when Cleveland Clinic first introduced nurses to the EPIC ASAP system. The new grads and younger nurses had a positive attitude towards electronic charting and we were excited about its arrival. The senior nurse were less optimistic. I recall statements like "Why can't we keep paper charts? It's been working well for us since Florence Nightingale" or my personal favorite "Who in the heck decided this? No one ever consults the nurses when changes need to be made". There was an 8 hour hands on competency course before EPIC ASAP went live. The class I attended specifically for my department (ER) was a mix of advanced beginners nurses, competent, proficient and one expert nurse from my department. The expert nurse had over 30 years of experience. She asked lots of questions and was really struggling during the first half the course. She really had a hard time grasping the concept of electronic charting compared to the rest of us who were computer literate and breezed through the course. To make a long story short after our lunch break that same expert nurse didn't return to the second part of the course. She was that distraught over learning a new concept and adapting to computer charting. Before EPIC ASAP went live she put in for her retirement and was gone 2 weeks before it started.
The need for improvement of patient safety and providing quality patient care was the driving force behind the evolution of computers in healthcare. Electronic patient record has become an important aspect in the information workflow, and using information technology will result in improving patient outcome quality and efficiency. Addressing improvement in nursing workflow is essential to the improvement of patient stability and safety. I think if that same expert nurse had approached electronic charting as a way to improve her workflow more efficiently while providing safe quality care she would have embraced it with a more positive attitude and been successful at it. [Show Less]