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Everyone wants to know what my nursing informatics class is like…

2011 April 4
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by Terri Schmitt

I have had a hard time keeping up with my call for research postings from @torontoemerg and Rob Fraser, but do not worry – a long post with some nursing research articles is coming!

In the mean time, I have had more than one nurse ask me what I teach in my nursing informatics course and why.  This is a simple, yet complex, answer and would take you reading my syllabus.  Suffice to say that the class is a compressed class, 6 weeks for 3 hours of credit, requires a previous basic computer science course, and is geared to working RN’s getting their BSN.  It is fully online, but I strive to teach them three key things: how to find sound information (and discern whether it is sound),  to understand why and where their patients go for information,  and the importance of every aspect of the clinical information system (CIS).  IN turn, this means they learn social media.  They create blogs, webliographies on relevant health care topics, and twitter accounts and perform assignments in each.  They even do group work and presentations online and create Slideshare accounts.  There are no documents or paper turned in at all in class and for many this is a source of great anxiety due to the fear of the unfamiliar.

I am beginning to think that it might not be what some people teach, but how they teach it that is more key.  Creating inspiration, desire, and hunger for greater understanding in students makes any class an accomplishment.  Online learning is frightening for the student and if executed poorly is frustrating, to say the least, for the learner.  Thus, more than class specifics I wanted to provide you all with an idea of how I teach online.  Below is one of the communications I send out… I call them the Monday Memo and they go out every week of class.  They help keep me on track, the students on track, spread a little inspiration, and are a reminder that we are all peers as nurses and we are all in this together.  Each one is laid out exactly the same way, with new information each week.   I work for an unabashedly Christian institution so I am allowed to spread inspiration in spiritual ways as well.  Take it or leave it but below is my Monday Memo for week 5 of the NUR3563 class.

NUR/HSC 3563 MONDAY MEMO WEEK 5

Wow – I cannot believe I just typed week 5! Think of all the things you are learning.  This week we will focus on how to use the library better, since we are better searchers from the content last week on the internet and browsers.  I did learn a few things this week and pick up some important links that I wanted to share with you. As H.I.T. (Health Information Technology) continues to grow, the government and the state are getting involved.  The reason is because eventually we want patient’s records to be available when they need them, where ever they need them, and secure.  Here are three links that may help you inform patients and peers in the Health Care arena:

- Missouri Office of Health Information Technology – http://www.dss.mo.gov/hie/

- Missouri HIT assistance center – http://ehrhelp.missouri.edu/node/1

- Health.gov (the latest information on health care reform, government links, look up how to get insurance for those who are uninsured) – http://health.gov/

What Terri is Doing this week: Grading super AWESOME Webliographies! I would like to post a blog post on my blog highlighting your great work and tweet them out.  IF you do not want me to do this then simply send me an e-mail and I will refrain.  They are really looking good and I should have grades in, that you can see :) by mid-week.

TO DO WEEK 5:

1. Week 5 we are learning about the Library and the NET library – Read: McGonigle & Mastrain chapters: 20, 21, 22

2.  Your final blog posting (blog journal 2) is due on Friday at 6pm

3. Assignment 2 (your library work and CNet, Insights in Nursing, or other options) is due to the designated DB area in the week 5 folder by Friday at 6pm.

4.  Final DB (3) is due by Sunday evening at 6pm (it is a great discussion board too and I probably will not be able to stay out of that one :) ).

Inspirational Words for the Week – Ephesians Chapter 1 – We will be unified at some point and we will be redeemed from our imperfections and live in relationship, peace, unity with each other. How cool will that be (since I am beyond imperfect right now) ???? So, what we do here and now helps this work to be done later.  We choose daily whether to believe and act out the Love we have been shown.

” Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love  he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.  In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace  that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ,  to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.”

Inspirational Tunes for the Week – First, an appropriate song for today “Pride” by U2. Bono sings of many, ‘one man’, people who came in the name of love and lived out their belief. Interestingly today is April 4th – the anniversary of the death of one man that he sings about, Martin Luther King. However, Bono himself has been that man – doing more for the world AIDs crisis than any other individual in history (even the church, sad to say) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHcP4MWABGY

And – when we know our true purpose and live beyond just a pay check or advancing our own career… then we are truly free… When we know that we can be free and loved even with our short comings then we are Free to be ourselves and to accomplish our purpose.  Free to be me – Francesca Battistelli (who was incidentally in town this last weekend at the Q) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKSQjSdU8VA

Don’t forget to e-mail me or come to office hours on Tuesday if you need me for anything. Keep up the great work and learning! I am so impressed!!!!

T

from → Education, Library Science, nurse, nursing education, online learning, social networking, Student Nurse

  • http://mystrongmedicine.com Sean

    I have every intention of passing on the good word about your informatics class to my former BSN informatics professor (and director of the BSN program) that I attended.
    She will love to hear the work you are doing.
    Keep up the great work Terri.

    • http://nursestory.com Terri Schmitt

      Thanks Sean! I am not sure that what I am doing is that impressive and certainly not that ‘scholarly’, but it does bring real world to bedside in a tangible way. Thanks for reading!

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  • http://www.nursinginformaticshq.com Chris

    Interesting post. I always wondered about nursing informatics courses. I think it would be beneficial for students to learn basic database concepts. I have interviewed nurses for entry level positions and many don’t know anything about databases or have played much in microsoft access or excel. One tip I love to give to those trying to to get into the informatics profession is to learn basic database skills. Every job I have had requires some database tinkering, and sure, you don’t have to go in and create a database, but it helps to know basic querying skills.

    • http://nursestory.com Terri Schmitt

      Thanks Chris! I completely agree and am working on how to add teaching them something like excel, with another assignment, to a 6 week course that is fully online and sometimes full of people who are very unsure of their technology skills. If you have ideas I would love to hear them! Thanks for reading!

      • http://www.nursinginformaticshq.com Chris

        Yes, 6 weeks is definitely a short time, but that might be enough time to incorporate some basic excel tutorials. If anything, I would teach students the basics of creating a data sheet where you can incorporate a bit of logic and calculations. The tutorial goes to lookup functions, but don’t really have to go into too much details of that. http://www.pitt.edu/~edindex/ Look at lesson 4 and 5 and also checkout the access tutorial.

        Also, many times a director will ask you to show some examples, like, number of catheter infections in the past few months, and sometimes they want charts, so a tutorial that incorporates the creation of charts using data. A tutorial like this works: http://people.morrisville.edu/~shayyaw/Excel/IntroExcel.htm

        This tutorial is also great because it basically shows a lot of functionality that you might need as an analyst: http://ulearnoffice.com/excel/data.htm

        Anyway, as you can see, lots of tutorials but main theme is how to take an excel sheet, and how to plot data on it, analyze data, be aware that you can use math functions on the data, logical functions, data can be sorted and do google search of excel command of LEN and CONCATENATE. These two commands could save future analysts a lot of time.

        Example, many systems require you to create fields that are of a certain length. I know of analysts that sit there counting each character. I simply put my stuff in an excel sheet, do a LEN command on it, and I’m done. Concatenate—client gives you a data set of lets say last names, first names and they want these two merged. Easy. Concatane them in excel.

        Finally, a basic access tutorial of how to import excel data into access might be useful. :D

        hope that helps

        • http://nursestory.com Terri Schmitt

          Very helpful and I agree with all you have said about excel learning and order. Thanks!

    • http://www.thenerdynurse.com The Nerdy Nurse

      Chris, I agree with you on the database concepts. The limited amount of knowledge I have on databases, has been extremely helpful to me in informatics. That is one thing that I need more education on in order to do my job more efficiently. I am better able to hold software vendors accountable to problems with software because of my sql database knowledge.
      A course in Microsoft access would be helpful to anyone who wants to work in an “informatics” or information systems department.

      • http://nursestory.com Terri Schmitt

        Thanks Nerdy Nurse! I agree too and have added this component to two classes and they build step-wise on each other. Love excel!

  • Anonymous

    Superb! I will be teaching the subject this coming April and will incorporate your strategy into my teachings. =)