Module 1

1.-  My name is Alison Polston, I am in the DNP-FNP cohort.  I have been a nurse for 6 years with experience in post-partum and nursery, community health, and school nursing.  I currently work for the state as a CNA skills examiner. 
I have been married for 14 years and have 2 wonderful children ages 10 and 5.  This is my first experience with blogging, so my blog is going to probably look plain.  I have read other classmates bloggs and they look awesome with pictures and other stuff.
2.-  Why as a graduate level nurse do you need to know about information management?
As an Advance Practice Nurse I need to have evidenced based information about treatment options, medications, research, clinical practices that will benefit my patients.  Also it will help me securely maintain patient documentation, and make such information available to other health care providers that need to know such information..
3.-  In my practice setting, IT is helping all nurses access information regarding the standards to which CNAs need to be tested in order to be state certified.  As skills examiners, we cannot test each student according to our personal standard, but must adhere to what the state requires CNA students to know.  Without IT, this process will take longer (perhaps weeks or months), and would be less effective.  For example, if there is a change in a skill, it would take a long time to implement a change until all skills test examiners are up to date on the information.  IT makes it possible for us to implement changes quickly and effectively.