IT125

IT125 Nursing Informatics - Spring 2007

Margaret Menzin Office: S3209 Phone: X2704
Email: menzin@simmons.edu Home Phone: 781-862-5107

                            Office Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays 10:00-11:00; and 1:30-2:00
                                                       Wednesdays I am always in from 1:00-3:30 and often in the morning;
                                                       Mondays and Fridays I am in, but please come by appointment.
                                          Note: I normally eat lunch at 12:00 or 12:30, but can move that
                                                     to meet you in the middle of the day.
                                                     The Mathematics and Computer Science Department eats at Bartol on Fridays
                                                     at 11:30. We hope you will join us.
                                                    There is no class on Tuesday April 3 because of Passover.
                                                    This class will be made up.

Mechanics of This Course

Texts:

Hebda, Czar and Mascara: Handbook of Informatics for Nurses and Health Care Professionals- 3rd edition (HCM).
Grauer and Barber Exploring Office 2003 - Plus Edition (G&B)

Note: Our Bookstore has made a significant effort to get good prices on used texts for us.
In addition, other books are on Reserve in the Library.

Scheduling: There will be no classes on Tuesday April 3, 2007. This class will be made up at a time convenient to all.

There will be the following five projects required, each of which will count equally towards your grade:

a short paper approximately 3 weeks into the semester on the material in Unit One.
group or individual project on Unit 2 (using Excel) due approximately 6 weeks into the semester
group or individual project on Unit 3 (using Access) due approximately 9 weeks into the semester
short paper at the end of Unit 3 (on database issues) due approximately 10 weeks into the semester
group or paired project at the end of Unit 5 (designing a patient information site) in lieu of a final

Grades: Each of the exams and projects will be worth 20%.

General Philosophy of This Course

This course focuses on the knowledge and skills recommended for undergraduate students by the American Nurses Association. It is the aim of this course for you to learn not only the skills that are currently useful, but also to build a conceptual base from which your knowledge will continue to grow over the course of your career. For example, when we discuss databases, not only will you learn how to use Access, but you will also learn about more general issues of concurrency, designing to avoid anomalies, access control, etc.

This will be a very 'hands on' course. You will be at a computer in at all our meetings. We will also meet, during some labs, with nurses and other health information professionals to see major information systems and investigate how the theoretical issues play out in practice.

Accommodations for Special Needs:

Reasonable accommodations will be provided for students with documented physical, sensory, systemic, cognitive, learning, and psychiatric disabilities. If you have a disability and anticipate that you will need a reasonable accommodation in this class, it is important that you contact the Academic Support Center Director at 617-521-2471 early in the semester. Students with disabilities receiving accommodations are also encouraged to contact their instructors within the first 2 sessions of the semester to discuss their individual needs for accommodations.

Course Outline

Overview of Information Systems (2 ½ weeks) - HCM Chapters 1, 2 and 5
Hardware, software, network architecture, integration of handhelds (such as Palm Pilots) with computer systems, major applications of IT to nursing.

Modeling Nursing Problems with Spreadsheets (3 weeks)- G&B Excel Ch.1, 2, 3 (and 4 if time allows)

Mastery of Excel to solve problems such as seeing how a medicine decays in the body, what happens if a dose is skipped, how to schedule a department etc.

Organizing Nursing Information with Databases (4½ weeks) - HCM Chs. 3, 10, 12; G&B Access Ch. 1, 2, 5, 6 (and 3 if time allows)
Introduction to the key ideas in database design (consistency, restricting access of various users, recovery from failures, etc.). Design of your own databases for small problems using Access: designing the database, querying it, and generating reports. Examination of major (large) database systems found in hospitals, with site visits and a chance to ask how they perform relative to nurses' expectations and needs.

Finding and Evaluating On-line Information (½ week) - HCM - Ch. 4 and 13
Tools for professionals; tools to help patients evaluate information.

Designing a Patient Information Web Site (with Dreamweaver) (2 ½ weeks) -: HCM Ch. 15 and 16; material from PTRC on Dreamweaver and assigned readings on usability
Making your site easy to use and helpful for various audiences (age, linguistic level, etc.) Critiquing other sites so as to do a good job on your own site. Use of a production-level tool to design a site on a topic of interest.