Category: NASN

Yes, I’m really still here

Well my goodness I haven’t posted since the end of 2017! The time since then and now has been eventful as always…

I am still working at Texas Children’s Hospital, which I love. I moved into a new role a few months ago, and have been enjoyed the challenge of redefining my skillset yet again. I work in Perioperative Services as a Clinical Data Specialist with a great team, and am looking forward to some exciting projects there.

The DNP journey has been put on hold for the time being. With two kids in high school, one of whom will be graduating next year, it wasn’t the right time to be pursuing my doctorate. In a few years both boys will be off on their own at college or some other adventure, so I will revisit going back to school. Right now I am just enjoying being more present for my family, and it’s nice not having my nose in my laptop every evening and all weekend.

I’ve become more involved in the Houston chapter of HIMSS, working with the #TXHIMSS19 committee as the Communications Chair. The upcoming Texas HIMSS conference has a great lineup, with #WomeninHIT Rebecca Kaul and Karen DeSalvo giving the keynotes.

If you have a passion for Informatics and you’re not a current member of HIMSS, I highly encourage you to join. Depending on where you work, your organization may already have an affilation and you can take advantage of a complimentary membership.

I’m looking forward to #HIMSS19, where I will have a poster at the Nursing Informatics Symposium. I’m still working with NASN on their data initiative “Every Student Counts”, and the poster will address the challenges facing school nurses around data interoperability. Stay tuned for posts and updates from that event!

Yes, I’m still here

I’m back! The last eight months have been a whirlwind of activity…let’s see:

  • I started a new job at Texas Children’s Hospital on the Clinical Informatics team. TCH is a world renowned hospital for women and children in the Texas Medical Center, and I am so impressed with the organizational culture. I work with a talented team of nurse informaticists, and am looking forward to collaborating with them on the many upcoming projects we have in the works.
  • Remember how I said I needed a break from school? Guess who started the DNP program at UT Health School of Nursing? I’m loving the scholarly focus, and wish there were more hours in the day so I could read everything they assign!

Paper meme

  • HURRICANE HARVEY. Ugh. We were very fortunate to not flood during this epic storm, but my community was pretty hard hit, and many close friends were completeley flooded out of their homes.
  • The Alliance for Nursing Informatics has a Twitter feed now, which I help run. Follow them today to learn all about what ANI does, and how you can get involved.
  • I was asked by NASN to write a guest blog for HIMSS on Immunization data. You can read all about that here.
  • I am throwing my hat into the ring for a national ANIA Board position. If you are an ANIA member, I’d love to have your vote! You have until November 10th to cast a vote. And if you are not a member of the American Nursing Informatics Association, consider joining today. I have met and learned from many talented informaticists, and gained new friends in the process.

 

Recap of #NASN2015 with #JJSHLP

June went by in a whirlwind! #NASN2015 was just a few weeks ago, and I attended as not only a poster presenter, but an exhibitor with the Johnson & Johnson School Health Leadership Program. I was so fortunate to be asked to participate in the exhibitor booth with many other past fellows of the program. We were able to share details of the program with many school nurse colleagues, and meet some of the new Fellows who will be coming through the program in July. I am having fun running the @JJSHLP Twitter feed, and we took a lot of pictures during the conference at our booth. Check out their Facebook page, as well as the JJSHLP website for more details on the program.

jjshlp NASN pic

Also in June I finished up school on my campus, and said goodbye to a lot of wonderful families, students and teachers from the elementary school where I worked. I love that I can stay connected with many of them through Facebook and other social media channels. It will be so nice to watch my former students grow up from a distance. The end of school was bittersweet, though. I have worked as a school nurse for the past six years, and I can honestly say they have been six of the most productive years of my career, in terms of opportunities and advancement. I remember vividly a colleague trying to dissuade me from entering the school nurse profession, on the basis that it would stall my career, and hurt me professionally. As this was someone I admired and respected very much, her words did give me pause. But I went forth anyway, and have never looked back and/or regretted any decisions during my school nurse career path. It has opened me up to a multitude of new opportunities that I honestly do not think I would have discovered in another nursing specialty. I have been connected to several mentors that have helped and encouraged me along the way. I learned a lot about myself, and on the rare occasions when I look back on my past professional journey prior to school nursing I cringe at how I handled many situations.

mmayer pic

I’ve learned from all those experiences, however, and going forward I now know what not to do. I’ve also learned not to let others limit my thinking as to what I should or should not try to do to grow myself professionally. And by that I don’t mean I just go blazing into new opportunities without seeking guidance from mentors and other colleagues. But now I don’t limit myself to “Well, I’m just a nurse, and since I’ve never done XYZ before, I can’t do it now.” I love the quote from Marissa Mayer above- it was a poster on the wall of the elementary school I worked at, and it really struck me the first time I saw it. I snapped a pic of it, and refer to it often, when I am thinking about starting a new venture.

Gearing up for summer

With only 13 days left in the school year, things seem to be wrapping up quickly. The end of year flurry of getting my clinic closed up for summer vacation has commenced. The last day of school will be bittersweet for me, because I have decided not to return to my elementary campus next year. With only three classes left before I graduate with my Masters in Healthcare Informatics, I decided the time was right to go ahead and start looking for a new job. I’m optimistic that my unique nursing background along with my Masters degree will make me a good candidate for an Informatics position. So keep your fingers crossed for me!

I’m still going to stay in touch with my school nurse colleagues, and I will be attending #NASN2015 next month to present my poster on social media. I also plan to keep working with the J&J School Health Leadership Program, which I’m really excited about. (Follow them on Twitter and Facebook, by the way.)

steps pic

Stay tuned for all the posts from #NASN2015. Jessica Porter has some great activities in store for the NASN Twitter mentors.

Sign up for a wearable device study by Addapp

Check out this interesting 6 month study using wearable devices by Addapp Labs. You first have to download their app, and set up an account. Next go and sign up for the study on their website, and answer a few questions about what type of data you currently track, what you are interested in, and why they should choose you to wear one of the devices for 6 months. They will contact you if you meet the requirements for the study. You can also follow Addapp on Twitter for updates. Patient collected data is the wave of the future, and I think there are enormous benefits to it’s use. I am keeping my fingers crossed that I am selected for this study!

There’s been a lot of chatter on the internet recently about patient collected data, and whether or not it can and/or should be used by medical providers. View these TEDMED talks compiled by Lucien Engelen, and this primer from the ONC for some info. Also check out Dr. John K. Halamka’s “Life as a CIO” blog for his insights on collecting and using patient gathered data. You should also follow Dr. Halamka and Mr. Engelen on Twitter for future updates.

Personally I think the more control people have over their own data, the more invested they will ultimately be in their health. And I think there is a large amount of uncollected data that can be used to help complete the picture of a person’s overall health and wellness. (School Nurse data, anyone?) This data can be of enormous use to clinicians to help them care for their patients. The trick is figuring out how to best collect it, and then how to apply and use it.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

happy new year

Update from #TSNO2014

TSNO 2014 poster

I haven’t posted in quite some time, and I have been meaning to get back into the blog. This semester I have been so busy at school, but things are finally settling down. Over the weekend I attended the Texas School Nurses Organization conference, and lucky for me it was here in Houston! I really enjoy attending conferences. It’s always so interesting to me to hear from other people in my profession how they work, what challenges they have overcome, and what they like and/or don’t like about their careers. I always come away with new information, and new colleagues to keep in touch with. I presented a poster on School Nurses and Social Media while there, and helped coordinate the Twitter feed #TSNO2014. It was a great conference, and I am glad I got the opportunity to work with TSNO and run the Twitter feed during the conference. Now if I could just convince more School Nurses to Tweet!

 

My two worlds have collided!

In a really neat twist, my two worlds of School Nursing and Informatics have something in common this week. My school district recently updated their website, which I love, and today they added an interactive dashboard:

KIDS logo

So how does this relate to my Healthcare Informatics studies at SBMI? This semester I am taking a class on data visualization, and we are going to learn how to design dashboards and other interactive displays. So far the classes have been very interesting. It’s great that I have a real world example that is personal to me to refer back to. This dashboard got me to thinking about my school clinic data, and how I could develop an interactive dashboard with Tableau once I get more comfortable with the program. More projects to work on!

KISD apple

Back to school checklist on my school blog page

Flyer graphic

So I’ve spent a lot of time this week getting my school clinic ready. School starts on August 25th, and I am excited to see all of my students again! I have a clinic blog over there that I have recently started, called Nurse Notes. I am trying to come up with a way to get information out to our parents without overwhelming them with paper, as well as keeping my school website uncluttered. It’s a work in progress. NASN has a great Back to School checklist for parents that I have over there. Thanks for checking my school blog out!

Presenting at #NASN2014

Twit pic right before Yvonne and I gave our presentation on EHR's at the NASN 2014 conference.
Twit pic right before Yvonne and I gave our presentation on EHR’s at the NASN 2014 conference.

I was SO NERVOUS when we took this picture. We were about to start our presentation titled “Making Effective Use of Electronic Student Health Data”, and as our School Nurse colleagues filed in to take a seat, we took this selfie and posted it to the #NASN Twitter feed. It helped to settle my butterflies somewhat.

My mind went from “What if no one shows up?” to “Oh thank goodness, some people have arrived” to “OMG there are a LOT of people in here now” in the 10 minutes before the presentation started. Once my colleague Yvonne started talking I scanned the audience for familiar faces, and was comforted to see several. By the time it was my turn to speak, I was much calmer and focused, and I actually surprised myself by being able to talk “about” the slides, as opposed to just reading from my notes. All in all I’m happy with the presentation, and I am glad we decided to speak on this topic. Sometimes people glaze over when I start talking to them about EHR’s and data, but the Nurses who attended the presentation were interested in the topic and asked great questions. Yeah for data geeks like me!

I saw a lot of great presentations at this conference. Among my favorites were:

National School Nurse Standardized Dataset: What Do I Collect and How Do I Use It? NASN is going to start capturing data points on staffing, student disposition, and chronic conditions. The wheels in my head started turning during the presentation as to how we can capture this info in our District. Some of the data points we are already collecting, which is even better!

How to Turn Your Project into a Manuscript: Really You Can! This presentation was so informative, and the speakers were honest yet encouraging. I was really impressed by their willingness to share their knowledge and encourage everyone in the room to consider submitting a publication to the NASN School Nurse journal or the Journal of School Nursing. (Also an FYI, the JOSN does podcasts!)

Ordinary School Nurses are Extraordinary Leaders. Two past NASN Presidents spoke during this session, and I really enjoyed the contrast between their presentation styles. They talked about different leadership styles, and how “all School Nurses are leaders”. Inspiring stuff.

Poster session at #NASN2014

One highlight for me during the NASN conference was the poster session. As part of the Johnson & Johnson School Health Leadership team from Klein ISD, we have all spent many hours working on our Enduring Change project. Our team decided to present a poster about our project, to gain experience with presenting in a professional setting as well as share the progress we have made with our initiative.

I did not realize until we started to work on the poster content that everything would be digital, and the “poster” would in fact be created using Power Point and displayed on a large TV screen. (The digital nerd in me was super impressed). After MANY revisions, we were happy with the final product, and felt the red background of the J&J template worked well with the graphic that our team member Yvonne designed. The day of the poster session we assembled our team (in matching Klein ISD Health Services shirts!) to answer questions from the attendees and hand out info related to our poster and project.

Our poster presentation at the NASN 2014 conference. Pictured left to right: Laurie Combe, Linda Rosemeyer, Beth Pali, Brittany Lloyd, Yvonne Clarke, Regina Wysocki.
Our poster presentation at the NASN 2014 conference.
Pictured left to right: Laurie Combe, Linda Rosemeyer, Beth Pali, Brittany Lloyd, Yvonne Clarke, Regina Wysocki.

We were honored to win an award for our poster in the Health Promotion category, and I don’t think Brittany took the award ribbon off all night!

I attended all three of the poster sessions, and really enjoyed the experience. There were posters on research studies, posters on long term projects like ours, posters about students with rare medical conditions, posters on school wellness initiatives, and posters on smaller projects that School Nurses had completed on their own individual campuses. Creating a poster seems like an intimidating prospect, but it really is not! On my own campus, I can think of a few programs we have done that could be poster worthy: the yearly Health Fair, our “Walk to School Day” in the fall, the “Bubble Patrol” that rewards students for good handwashing habits, and our use of websites and social media to keep in touch with our parents.

The point is that as School Nurses we are already participating in poster-worthy projects on a daily basis in our clinics. Presenting a poster at your state or national conference is a great way to be recognized for all your hard work, and champion your projects. It also gives you a tremendous sense of satisfaction to see all of your hard work and efforts reflected on a fancy digital screen for all the world to see.

What poster-worthy project can you think of from your own campus? Consider sharing it at your next conference!

 

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