Hi all :)
My first name is Kathleen but I go by my middle name of Bridget. I live in Idaho. I am a CPNP (since 1996) and hold a post masters certificate in Women's Health and Reproductive Gyn (1997). I have been working in primary care on a Native American Reservation for the last 10 years and in a large pediatric private practice in Colorado prior to that. As far as IT in my workplace we have been using EHR for two years. I have used it to have our IT specialist recover data for my information regarding trends in disease or health processes. This was especially helpful to see if interventions were effective in preventing childhood obesity (they were not). We also used data from EHR to use in grant applications for childhood obesity prevention and on the FASD interdisciplinary team. The IT department used it to report and track doing health screenings and interventions. So for example, we could determine if clients were being screened for drug and alcohol use, or for depression. The problem was that the same tool was not being utilized for the screenings so we were not sure the information had validity.
My areas of interest include childhood obesity prevention and treatment, children with special needs including FASD, and adolescent (hi risk) health care.
I have been a nurse (peds) since 1981. I am in the MS-DNP program.
I am absolutely petrified of computers. Looking forward to the class content though :)
Hi Bridget. This is my first blogging experience. Good luck to you.
ReplyDeleteHi Bridget, and welcome. Hopefully we can overcome some of that fear! This course is all about giving you a taste of many aspects of health information technology so you become more knowledgeable and comfortable with technology. Glad to hear another Idahoan is in the ranks!!
ReplyDeleteGlad to be here and learning more all the time. One of the concepts that confuses me about using the Web for researching articles is the concept of information overload. I am not sure when there is enough information! Since it seems limitless to me I am confused on when to stop and how to organize the information. I am sure as I become more familiar with strategies and searching I will start to understand boundaries.
ReplyDeleteIt sure is a lot different than in "95 when I was last on computers for Medline. And a far cry from those index cards the teachers used to make us use in grammar and high school. One for every idea when you wrote a paper..... imagine that...
Bridget,
ReplyDeleteHello my name is Lauri Morgan and it's nice to meet you. Good luck in all your educational endeavors and I'm sure I'll get to talk to you soon.
Lauri Morgan
MODULE 2 ENTRY
ReplyDeleteAt work,I have been involved several ways with our computer information system. When we first started with EHR, I was involved in creating templates for our EHR system for the nurse practitioners and myself. The physicians were resistant to using the NP templates. They felt it was too much charting and because they wanted to document "normal" - instead of objective descriptions - as part of the objective data. However, when the Case Management committee refused to reimburse or pay for their referrals due to lack of adequate charting then they got on board for using some of the templates and descriptions.
I was also involved in setting up a template for the clinic nurses to use to document encounters. The clinic nurses had been using free text instead of SOAP charting and the template was helpful for that.
One of the more current projects I was involved in was being able to retrieve data on the pediatric clients with BMI's greater than the 95% on the peds charts. For some reason, we were getting extraordinarily low numbers off EHR that did not reflect what we saw in clinic. I actually (with the help of my nurse) started to compare data taken by hand with the EHR data for almost a month. We found there was a major discrepancy with our data reflecting rates in the 50% to 60% for ages 2 to 5 years and data off EHR was showing only 10% for the same age group and time. I was working with the IT person about this to determine what may have been entered incorrectly to make the computer unable to retrieve this information accurately. Since the Diabetes team (I was the medical consult for the peds part of this grant) had a grant to facilitate and implement programs to treat and prevent peds obesity we wanted to make sure we were capturing data correctly. Unfortunately, I resigned my position before this was completed. I have heard the problem still exists with data inaccuracies.
I was also involved with GPRA coordination of screening. My goal was to have the nurses utilize the same methodology for screening for GPRA questions. I was also in this process when I left and unfortunately, this mantle has not been assumed by anyone else so the nurse are counting GPRA numbers inaccurately. For example, a nurse may ask a client "are you depressed?" when doing an intake and count that as "screening for depression" under GPRA instead of uysing a standardized set of questions.
It is all very interesting but I wish I had this class knowledge BEFORE I had tried to implement any of those programs or changes.
A typing class for all the providers would have helped also :)
Hi Bridget,
ReplyDeleteI thought I would check in with you on your blog. I appreciated your comments about using Google and I have also been surprised at some of the quality references that the search delivers. It is also very quick and no need to login. This particularly nice for those of us that often forgot which password I need to use.
I have found 2 other sites that I like. One is UptoDate (which is free) and the other is the Prescribers Letter. The Prescribers Letter does charge a fee but I can access it online as well as receive hard copies in the mail. It offers brief current updates, trends and changes in guidlines that are evidence based. The fee also includes CME, which is a faily inexpensive way to obtain CME that includes specialty areas I need for my FNP certfication. Topic areas include adult chronic disease, Gynecology, Pediatrics, Infectious disease and Complementary Medicine. So I think the fee is well worth it.
How did you do with the EndNotes tutorial? It took me awhile to go through it but really did start to make sense. I was chatting with one of my collegues today and she loves using it. I had a difficult time with importing files.She gave me great tip, she does her search through the library, keeping her Endnotes open. Instead of importing the file she asks Endnotes to find it, then enters the reference into Endnotes. She feels this is more effecient than importing files. Just a thought, I think it will all make more sense once we have our next session with Jean LeBer during our DNP class meeting.
Anyway, best wishes for a productive week! Julie