Module Three: Information Retrieval

You used an electronic index, a guideline index, and a web search engine to retrieve information relevant to your clinical problem. Compare and contrast your results. Which resources were useful/ not useful for your information retrieval task, and why?

During the module 3 retrieval activity, I was able to use many electronic and guideline indexes and a couple web search engines. Before becoming more proficient in using resources such as PubMed I used Google. Google is a good search engine, but you may have to search through pages of articles and websites before finding what you are truly looking for. I find that medical based indexes such as PubMed and CINAHL to work much better for my needs in finding articles related to the subject I am researching. EndNote is another useful tool in research; I can search for articles through EndNote and keep the relevant citations in a folder for later use. There are a couple downsides to the EndNote program; you have to make sure to edit your citations to the correct format and the program does not always find a full version or link to your article of choice.  I did go the National Guideline Clearinghouse web site for the first time and found that I did not get as large of a selection on my particular subject: Neonatal sepsis. I tried using different words to expand the results but usually I was only able to retrieve 7 entries, however, I feel that my inexperience may be to blame. I will go back to that site again at a later date to see if I can learn to make better use of it in the future.  

Module Two: Healthcare Information Systems and Devices

1. What is one way you could become involved in designing, selecting, evaluating, or implementing an information system in your workplace?

We have many committees at my place of work that get together to discuss the implementation of new information systems. Joining one of these committees would give me a chance to become involved in at least selection, evaluating, and implementation. When the vocera communication system was in the early stages I was on the committee for that. I was able to trial run it and then become a super trainer so that I could teach others on my unit how to utilize this new technology. I think nurses are involved in using information systems on a day to day basis making us evaluate and implement the systems we use; we use a scanning devise to scan in every medication that is given to include saline flushes, the monitors that measure or patients vital signs, and the programs we use to look up lab results and photographic images at the patients bedside in a matter of minutes. The possibilities of becoming involved in information system in the workplace is endless.

One of the best ways to become involved is to mention when you find a glitch in a new (or older) system. When my unit first implemented the use of the medication scanning system, we had many problems with our narcotic and sedative drips. These were usually continuously running drips; however, we would use these same continuous syringe drips for our break though pain or sedation boluses. The bar code on the syringe would only come up on the electronic MAR as a drip/infusion and we could not charge it or record it as a bolus dose. We now have a separate bar code for the syringe and one for the bolus given off of that particular syringe.