Monday, January 10, 2011

Module One: Introduction

Hi everyone, I am Jennifer.

I have been married for 15 years and I have three children; Megan, Collin, and Addy. My husband’s family is from England and a few years ago we decided to do a wild and crazy thing; we moved to England so that our children could see what it was like to actually live a British lifestyle and get to know his side of the family (my husband was the only child out of nine to be born in the States). We lived in a little village called Holbeach which is about two and a half hours north east of London. We knew that we were only going to stay there for a little over one year (the kids were not pleased with the move so we promised only one year) so we traveled as much as we could. We were able to visit many parts of England, Spain, Italy (best food in the world), Ireland (kissed the Blarney Stone), Netherlands, Africa, Scotland, and France (on many occasions to visit Disneyland Paris to keep the kids happy). It is safe to say that our kids were very tired of looking at castles by the end of our one year. Mine and my husband’s dream (and hopefully long term goal) is to move back to England and renovate a very old house and barn.

I work in the NICU at Primary Children's and I am in the DNP-NNP cohort. I think it is important for a graduate level nurse to know about information management; there are so many ways in this day and age to keep track of and monitor our patients. Our bedside monitors keep track of the patients vital signs and alert us when one of them is out of the normal parameters. As a graduate level nurse, the use of information management has become very important in the way we communicate with other medical professionals regarding our patients status.

As far as what is happening related to IT in my clinical practice setting, it is endless! At Intermountain Health Care we use the Vocera system which is sort of like a walkie talkie that hangs around your neck letting you be hands free when needing to find someone really fast such as in a code. I can even use it to talk with other medical professionals at other facilities. I really like the Vocera technology! We also use a computer system to look up labs and test results as well as look at x-rays right at the patients bedside. There really seems to be no end to the increasingly important use of IT in the medical setting. I do have to admit that beyond setting up a blog, I am some what useless when it comes to using new technology and I am looking forward to this class.

2 comments:

  1. Excellent work on your blog! I enjoyed reading about your experiences, you seem to be well travelled and tuned into technology. I hope this class will give you new insights and I am looking forward to reading more through out the semester.

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