SPSS.....

Today, we are going to talk about the research that we have done in the previous class. We were asked to present what we have done for our research. Then, we are introduced to SPSS in the IT class. We were asked to give code to the demography of the respondent. For example, for the sex of the respondent, 1 represent male and 2 represent female. For the academic background, 1 represent nursing student Diploma 2nd year and 2 represent nursing student Degree 2nd year and 3 represent nursing student Degree 3rd year.

Then we were asked to open the SPSS in the computer. We were asked to explore the SPSS by reading on some of the example in the computer which has key in the data in the SPSS. In the SPSS, there are 2 types of view which are “data view” and “variable view”. To start to use the SPSS, we should start from the ‘variable view”. There are 10 column in the “variable view” which consist of ‘name’, ‘type’, ‘width’, ‘decimals’, ‘label’, ‘values’, ‘missing’, ‘columns’, ‘align’, and ‘measure’. To key each of the research data that you have colleted, you will need to fill in all the details in the variable view before you key in the data. First, you will need to name the question, then select “numeric’ for the variable type” and at the same time I change the decimals into zero before for the data that I collect do not need decimal. Then in the label column, I fill in more details about each of the data question. The values column is the answer of my question in the research which is represent by code also at the same time. In the measure column, there are 3 types of measures that you can choose which are ‘scale’, ‘nominal’ and ‘ordinal’.

Nominal Data

A set of data is said to be nominal if the values / observations belonging to it can be assigned a code in the form of a number where the numbers are simply labels. You can count but not order or measure nominal data. For example, in a data set males could be coded as 0, females as 1; marital status of an individual could be coded as Y if married, N if single.

Ordinal Data

A set of data is said to be ordinal if the values / observations belonging to it can be ranked (put in order) or have a rating scale attached. You can count and order, but not measure, ordinal data. The categories for an ordinal set of data have a natural order, for example, suppose a group of people were asked to taste varieties of biscuit and classify each biscuit on a rating scale of 1 to 5, representing strongly dislike, dislike, neutral, like, strongly like. A rating of 5 indicates more enjoyment than a rating of 4, for example, so such data are ordinal. However, the distinction between neighbouring points on the scale is not necessarily always the same. For instance, the difference in enjoyment expressed by giving a rating of 2 rather than 1 might be much less than the difference in enjoyment expressed by giving a rating of 4 rather than 3.

For more information, you can visit http://www.stats.gla.ac.uk/steps/glossary/presenting_data.html#nomdat or http://www.datastep.com/SPSSTutorial_1.pdf

Then after setting all the variable view, You can start to key in the data that you collected from the respondent. because the research is a group work so we divede the questionnare into 3 and each of us key in data from 20 questionnare. After 3 of us has key in, we combine the 3 files into one. How? first, open the first part of the file in spss, then, go to select 'Data' at the left above corner of the page, select 'Merge Files', then Select 'Add Cases' and a window will pop out and lastly click ok on the window. Then the files is combined. But, must make sure that the variable view you set must exactly the same with your friends so that you can combined it.

After combined all the file in one single file, you can create a summary by using the SPSS software. You can also calculate the data that you have key in by using the software. You do not need to calculate it manually. For example, you can click on 'analyze' on the left corner of the page in the spss, then, click on 'Descriptive Statistics". There are 5 choices that you can choose on to analyze your data such as ' Frequencies', 'Descriptives', 'Explore', 'Crosstabs' and ' Ratio'. You need to choose the suitable and appropriate types to analyze your data. For example, due to my data mostly is nominal type, so i can't choose 'Descriptives' to analyze my data. Ordinal types data is more suitable to choose on 'Descriptives'.

You can also click on 'Graphs' on the above of the page of spss. Then, you can graph bar , line or pie to analyze your data which you think is suitable for the data. All the graphs and table of frequencies will appear in SPSS viewer which you can save the viewer in '.spo' format or you can copy the graphs or table from the spss viewer to the Microsoft Word. After finish using the data in spss, you can save the data in '.sav' in order to let you open again in the next session.

Microsoft Excel......

Topic for today IT class is Microsoft Excel. Microsoft Excel is so useful in doing an account. So, today we are going to learn how to create a simple account for our expenses for one year by using Microsoft Excel.

First of all, open the Microsoft excel in your computer. there are many small box in the page and the small is called cell. Each cell has it own name such as B1, G6, C7 and so on. Then, when you click on one cell, there is a bold box around the cell. If you want to continue numbering from the first cell until the 20th cell, for example, you just need to key in for 1 and 2 in the first and second cell then highlight the whole column by dragging your mouse at the corner of the cell to the last cell which you wish to numbering. Then the highlight cell will numbering automatically without typing it manually.

By open one Microsoft excel, you can create few sheet of paper. You can also name the each sheet of the file by right click on the word "sheet" below and click on rename. After you key in all the data for your account about your daily expenses, you can use the function of autosum by clicking on the cell which you wish to put the sum and click the icon of autosum and then highlight the cells that contain the data that you wish to sum up and click enter. Besides sum up each row, you can also sum up all by dragging your mouse to all column.

Besides, you can also insert comment to each cell by right-clicking the cell and click on insert comment then just type in your comment. Then, you can also insert formula to calculate the balance or total of your data that you want. By using the formula, you can do several type of calculation by creating your own formula.

To make your account more clear and easy to interpret, you can add in border to your account by clicking the icon 'border" on the top of the page. Then, to make your account more interesting, you can add in color to your account.

You can also insert graph in your account to see the trend of your expenses. First you highlight the subject that you wish to show in your graph then click on 'ctrl' panel on the keyboard and at the same time highlight the data of each subject. Then, click on the icon 'chart wizard'. Choose your preferred chart and click 'next'. It will show your chart and your click 'next' once again. You can key in your chart title, title for y-axis and x-axis then click 'next' again. Lastly, if you want your chart in the same sheet, just choose on the setting and click 'finish' to complete your chart. It will appear on your page of your account.

After your finish one month account and want to continue the next month you can create in the new sheet. If your don't want to recreate all the things, you can right click on the 'sheet 1' below left page and click on 'move or copy' then decide which sheet you want to move then tick on the box of 'create a copy' then click 'ok'. All the things will appear on the new sheet. You can change the date and all the data. If you want to move your balance from the previous month to the present month, you can click on the cell that you wish to key in and set in a new formula. For the formula, key in = , then click the previous month sheet, then click on the balance and click enter. Then, the balance will move from previous to present month.

Ways to create a Power Point Presentation...

By using Microsoft Power Point, you can create an attractive and effective presentation.

After you collect all the data that you need in the presentation, you can start to create your presentation using Microsoft Power Point. First, you can choose your slide layout. there are several slide layout. Then, you can click on the icon "AutoShapes". In the autoshapes, you can choose lines, connectors, basic shapes, block arrows, flow chart, stars and banners and many more things that you can insert in your slide show. If you choose to draw a love-shaped in you slide, you can also make your love-shaped from 2D into 3D which look more attractive.

Then, you can color your love-shaped by right click on the love-shaped then choose "format autoshapes..". It pop up a window "Format Autoshape". From there, you can fill in with different color or even fill picture in your love-shaped. After that, you can insert your text in your love-shaped box.

If you are doing a mind map in your slide which contain various text box, you can connect your text box with the connectors which you can find in the "autoshape". The connectors will always connect your text box together wherever you move your text box. Then, in order to make your presentation more interesting, you can design the animation of your slide. You can click on "Custom Animation". Then, you choose on the item that you plan to put on animation. After clicking or highlighting the item, you can modify your animation of your slide. You can decide which text box or picture should come out first and last.

Then, there is a ways to help you create your presentation more easily which are using slide master. First, you click on "View", then click on "Master", then select "slide master". Once you click on this, what you need to do is to edit the master slide. The things that you edit on the master slide will appear on every slide. For example, if you have select a picture to become the background of all the slides, you just need to add the picture in the master slide then it will automatically appear in all slides. You can also edit header and footer in the master slide. For example, if you want to insert date in all your slides at the corner, you just need to go to your master slide and add the date in the footer.

If presentation are all words or note form, you can choose to highlight the key point that you are presenting by making the key point which you have already present in dim color. In order to do this, you highlight your key point then click on the custom animation, then click on the effect that you have set before, then a window will pop up. In the window you can choose the color of the word that it should appear after the animation. This can help to present more effectively by highlighting your key point.

Then you can also add animation to your slide which can make your presentation more interesting. By adding animation, the things that you want to present can pop up in many ways which is like animation. Then if your want to link one slide to another slide, for example from slide 1 to slide 4, you can use ‘hyperlink’. This ‘hyperlink’ not only can link within slide, but you also can link from the slide to other format file or website which is useful and can make your presentation more effective.

After creating all your Power Point, you can either save your presentation in pps. format or ppt. format. pps. format stand for power point show which if you save in this form, when you open your power point, it will directly open your presentation. If in ppt. format, when you open your power point, it will use the Microsoft Power Point to open.

Research...(part 2)

After come out with a topic for our research and the objective of the research, we start to find some information about the topic.Then we start to create and figure out the question for our questionnaire of the research. Then, we print out the questionnaire.

We distribute the questionnaire to 60 students which consist of Degree second year and Diploma second year of nursing students. We give them some time to do and collect back from them on that day or on the next day.

Research...

One more assignment from the IT class...RESEARCH...we were asked to form into a small group which consist of 3 members and do a research which related to nursing and IT. The participants of the research is at least 60 persons. We were asked to come out with a question before the class end. So, after discuss and discuss, our group decide to do a research on the effectiveness of the ICT course towards nursing students and the application of it by nursing student.

We come out with this idea is because a lot of people feel weird and wonder why a nursing student need to attend a IT class. A nurse only need to deal with a patient but not a computer. This is the opinion of most people. Some student might think that it is a waste of time to attend the IT class because some knowledge that teach in the IT class they already knew it before. So in this research, we are going to find out the use and purpose of this IT course and the effective of this IT toward nursing student. We wish to prove that the IT course is a necessary subject for a nursing students. A nurse need to be up to date.

So, after deciding the topic, we start to discuss and write out the purpose of the research and the introduction of the research. We also start to create the question for the research. But not the complete question. It just a draft of the question.

Ways to create a program book by using Word...

This time in the IT class, we need to create a program book which the book. Three persons in one group. We can create a program book by using Microsoft Word. The program book that we plan to create which is half of A4 size which mean we are going to fold the A4 paper into half. If you think that it is difficult to decide which page should come first or found difficulty when printing, there is a setting in Microsoft Word can help you solve all this problems.

First, click on ‘File’ which you can find this on the left upper part. Then, click on ‘Page Setup’. In the Page Setup, in the column of multiple pages, change ‘Normal’ into ‘Book Fold’.

After choosing it, the orientation of the page will automatically change into landscape. You can also set your margin to be narrower so that you can fit more things in your book fold. After all the setting, remember to click ‘ok’ to complete your setting. Then, you can start to create your program book and insert text. The program for my program book is a “Program Khidmat Bakti” which is a visiting to a village and give community services to the people in the village. We did create a front cover for our program book. Besides, the content of our program book include speech from the vice chancellor, speech from the head of the department, speech from the president of the program, introduction and objective of the program, the schedule of the program, the organization of the committee members and many more.

Ways to create a brochure...

This time, we were asked to create a brochure. How to create it? It is simple and easy to create a brochure. You can use Microsoft Word to create a brochure. Your brochure is basically just two landscape oriented pages set up with three columns. But before starting to create a brochure, you should try to create a brochure using a paper. By using a paper, you will have a brief idea about how your brochure will look like and how you should you fold your brochure. After deciding how your brochure going to look like, you an start to create it using Word.

1. Figure your layout

Before you open Word, you should figure out how the panels of your brochure will appear on the paper. There are two types of folds commonly used in brochures: the z (or accordion) fold and the barrel (or roll) fold. As the name indicates, with a z-fold, the paper is folded in alternating directions, which is good if you want to present information sequentially. The barrel fold is much like you'd fold a letter before putting it in an envelope (the second fold wraps around the first one).

This time i choose to create my brochure in the form of barrel fold. Then you have to decide which is fold is your first page.

2. Set up your paper

You should change your page orientation to landscape. Then you can set up the margins of the paper which you think is suitable for your brochure. Then after all the setting, you can click 'OK'.Next, in the page setup, click on the 'Paper' on the column above. This time, you are going to set up your paper size. There various size of paper that your can choose. But, i decided to choose A4 size paper which I think is not too big and not too small.

3. Set up columns

In order to let the brochure can fold into 3 parts, you have to set up the column into 3. Which mean that when you type your information in the paper, it will automatically start from the first column and continue to the second and third. This allow you to fold the paper into a brochure after you print it out.

4. Add and format text

Your layout is now all set up. You should see two pages that each have three panels with a blank paragraph in each one. Now you can begin adding text. Column break. When you are adding text, don't forget about where it will end up in the finished product. The cover may actually be the last panel (refer to your folded scrap piece of paper if you forget). Don't forget to create and design your cover of your brochure. You can format the text as you type or type it all in first and format later.

5. Add picture

The whole goal of any brochure is to communicate. Anything that is hard to read, won't be read. So in order to make your brochure to become interesting and easy to understand, you can add some pictures that are related in your brochure which can make your brochure colourful and attract others to read your brochure. It is important to make your brochure attractive in order to reach the goal of dissemination information to other. Brochure is a good and easy media to disseminate useful and important information.

6. Print it out

After you have done all the things, you can print your brochure out. But remember, must print it by using one paper only and both pages of that paper.

The purpose of creating a brochure (about Dengue Fever)....

Today in the IT class, we were asked to create a brochure about health promotion. So, I have decided to create a brochure about Dengue Fever.

What is the brochure about?
The brochure that I have created is all about dengue fever. In my brochure, I explained what exactly Dengue Fever is. I hope that the person that read my brochure can understand what is Dengue Fever. My brochure also include informations about the causes, the way of transmission, signs and symptoms, treatments, and preventions of Dengue Fever.

Why this brochure is created?
The main purpose I create this brochure is to give awareness to the public and community about the danger of Dengue Fever. Nowadays, there are people still do not realise when they got Dengue Fever. They might think that they just get simple fever that will recover by itself and will not affected their body much and will not bring any danger to life. So, through this brochure, i hope that people who read this brochure can know signs and symptoms about Dengue Fever. Besides, I also hope that people who read this brochure can understand how Dengue Fever is transmitted because many people do not realise that Dengue Fever is a communicable disease. It can spread within an area. It is important to know the ways to prevent Dengue Fever.

Who should read this brochure?
The brochure is created for everyone. Anyone who do not know what is Dengue Fever and wish to know more about Dengue Fever can read this brochure.

Where to get the brochure about health promotion?
Usually, this type of brochure can get from the hospital, pharmacy shop, health centre or clinic.

Article 3 (from e-journal portal UKM) : Retention and application of information technology skills among nursing and midwifery students

From this paper, I get to know that not every nursing or midwifery students wiil retain or apply the IT skill which acquired after attending the IT course. This paper presents the results of an investigation into the extent to which acquired IT skillsare retained and applied by undergraduate nursing and midwifery students participating in anintensive IT training course six months after the initial training period. I also get to know why this happen among the nursing or midwery students. Below is the abstract of the paper:

Abstract
Pre-registration nursing and midwifery students are under considerable pressure to acquire the necessary information technology (IT) skills by the time they embark on a professional nursing career. There is a multitude of research findings detailing the use of computer-based learning materials, IT training initiatives and how such materials are beneficial to learners. There is, however, relatively little in terms of the extent to which students are given the opportunity to use such skills during study periods over an extended period of time. This paper explores related issues by presenting the results of a study into the extent to which a cohort of undergraduate nursing and midwifery students retained and applied IT knowledge six months after the initial training period. The results reveal an interesting disparity between the skills taught and their retention and use in practice. Concerns are raised over the risk of such skills being forgotten by the time students enter professional nursing careers.

Article 2 (from e-journal portal UKM) : Benefits of nursing information systems: are there any?

This paper describes the background to and contents of a new publication jointly produced by the Department of Health and nurses from the British Computer Society Nursing Specialist Group. It describes the content of a monograph which is about whether nursing information system bring benefits or not.

Actually the purpose of implementing IT is to improve the quality care delivered by the nurses but due to the implementation of inappropriate systems, lack of training/education and unrealistic expectations of what information system and information technology can produce, this has turn out the end result to be unforeseen costs, unfulfilled promise, and a degree of disillusionment. This has been the reason of the monograph.

From the article, I get to know why it is important to have clear objectives set prior to implementation and precise and measurable expected benefits need to be defined when setting up the information system. I also get to know the process of benefits realisation, benefits from care planning functionality, benefits from workload functionality, benefits from workload functionality, benefits from rostering functionality and benefits from drug administration functionality which all involved the nuring informtion system.

In conclusion, every effort should be made to counteract the dearth of evidence to support the introduction of nursing information system. It is also important to make sure that the nursing information systems is bringing advantages but not burden.

Article 1 (from e-journal portal UKM) : Nurses and Informatics

We are so depending on information system in our daily life. It plays an important role in our daily life nowadays. We are living more easy and systematic because of the existence of information system. Why I say so? Banks, stock market, airline industry, factories, stores, schools and even in health industry are all using and depending on information system in order to function well, easy and systematically. Nurses are increasingly using information systems to assist them to fulfill this role in clinical practice, administration, research, and education.

In this article, it explains what is nursing first then it explains what informatics is. After that, it did explain the definitions of health informatics, medical informatics, and nursing informatics and how to differentiate among them. Health informatics has become the umbrella term encompassing medical, nursing, dental, and pharmacy informatics among others. Health informatics focuses attention on the recipient of care rather than on the discipline of the caregiver. It explains the nursing’s early role in medical informatics. The nurse’s early role in medical informatics was that of a consumer. It did explain how the nursing informatics develops and the impact of nursing informatics on nursing.

Nursing informatics has moved beyond merely the use of computers and is increasingly referring to the impact of information and information management on the discipline of nursing. Nurses form the largest group of health care professionals in any setting to have a health information system. When providing patient care, nurses make use of information management more often than any other group of health care professionals. The nursing profession is recognizing the potential of informatics to improve nursing practice and the quality of patient care.

After reading this article, I get more clear idea about nursing informatics. Nowadays, nurses are so relying on nursing informatics which are really saving much of nurses time and reduce the mistake that made by nurses such as during giving medications.

Searching articles using e-journal portal of UKM

This time, we were asked to search 3 articles using the e-journal portal of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia(UKM). E-journal portal of UKM had subscribed to many electronic journals to provide access to their students.

What is electronic journal(e-journal)?

Electronic journals are scholarly journals or magazines that can be accessed via electronic transmission. They are a specialized form of electronic document: they have the purpose of providing material for academic research and study, they are formatted approximately like printed journal articles, the metadata is entered into specialized databases, such as DOAJ or OACI as well as the databases for the discipline, and they are predominantly available through academic libraries and special libraries. Most commercial sites are subscription-based, or allow pay-per-view access. Many universities subscribe to electronic journals to provide access to their students and faculty, and it is generally also possible for individuals to subscribe. (abstracted from Wikipedia)

I have chosen few e-journals from the e-journal portal of UKM to search for the articles that related to my nursing and technology. The e-journal in the portal are categorise using Alphabetical Title Lists and categorise based on subjects such as Business Management/Economy, Computer/Engineering, Education/Psychology, General/Various Subjects, Information/Library Science, Law, Medical Science/Pharmacy/Dentistry, Science & Technology, Social Science/Linguistics and many more. The e-journal that I have chosen are Science Direct, SpringerLink, and Oxford Journal to search for the articles related to nursing and IT.

Actually, the ways to search article in the e-journal are more or less same as the ways to search article using the searching engine. I did use some of the techniques that I described in my previous post to search for the articles. For examples the Advance Search. I found out that using Advanced Search can find an articles that combine few topic or main points in one article.

The 3 articles that i found from the e-journal portal of UKM are:

1. Nurses and Informatics
2. Benefits of nursing information systems: are there any?
3. Retention and application of information technology skills among nursing and midwifery students

How do I search articles by using Internet?

On the second day of the IT class, we were asked to log in to a website called METAKU. It is a website that teach you how to search good articles using Internet. Actually before this, I never knew that there were techniques when searching for information or articles using Internet. After visiting METAKU, I realized that the way I search for articles in Internet are not that correct. The 3 articles that on my previous post are the articles that i search using the way that i learnt from METAKU.

Before that, the searching engine that i usually used to search for information are YAHOO (http://www.yahoo.com/) and GOOGLE(http://www.google.com/). But this time, I used a new searching engine which are ASK JEEVES(http://www.ask.com/).

I did try all the techniques for searching articles using searching engine that taught in the METAKU. The first technique, I try to recognise and find out all the key words that related to my topic or articles that I searching for. I try to write out the topic that i searching for in the fact form or in a question form. For example, the topic that i was asked to search are about information technology and nursing. So,when i search, i will write in this way: "The importance of information technology in nursing." or "Why information technology is important in nursing?". I did combine the key words that related to the topic in order to find more relevant and accurate articles.

The second technique, I did use the symbol " " when searching for articles. For example, "Information Technology" or "Nursing" or "Information Technology""Nursing". This technique help me find more accurate articles by decrease the numbers of the results articles if compared with not using the this symbol " ".

The third technique, I used the Advanced Search. In the Advanced Search, I can key in more and extra key words that relevant to the topic that I am searching for. This help me find more specific and accurate articles. This also save my time by reducing the results.

The forth technique, it is a technique that teach you how to search for image, audio file/mp3, video or document in pdf format or powerpoint. I did try to use this technique to search for document in pdf format or powerpoint and i found out that there were some good article were in this form.

The last one, it teach us how to open a new window or tab by not closing the previous page for reference. I used this so often because it is so convenient for me to choose the right article by open few articles in the same time.

Article 3: Nursing Informatics

What is Nursing Informatics? This is the first question that pop into my head after i saw the title of the article. Based on Wikipedia, there are various different definition of Nursing Informatics have been proposed. The most widely currently accepted definition comes from the International Medical Informatics Association - Nursing Informatics Special Interest Group adopted August 1998, Seoul, Korea:

"Nursing informatics is the integration of nursing, its information, and information management with information processing and communication technology, to support the health of people world wide."

A more recent definition of Nursing Informatics comes from the American Nurses Association's Scope and Standards for Nursing Informatics Practice (2008):

"Nursing Informatics is a specialty that integrates nursing science, computer science, and information science to manage and communicate data, information, knowledge and wisdom in nursing practice."

Based on this article, Nursing Informatics is the term that is used to describe the cross-functional interrelationship between nursing concepts, and information resources and technology. The article explained how the term evolved into two basic meanings in the last few years. The two basic meanings refer to the broad needs that all nurses have to be information savvy -- to be able to use information access tools, information technology resources, and computerized systems on the job and also refer nursing informatics as a nursing specialty. In this article, there are also few opinions and responses that collected from nurses about the impacts of the information age on their jobs.

After reading this article, I get some idea on how Nursing Informatics influence a nurse in the hospital and more understand what actually Nursing Informatics is.

For full article, you can visit this link: http://www.cabrillo.edu/~tsmalley/NrsgInformatics.html

For more definition of Nursing Informatics, you may visit this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nursing_informatics

Article 2: The nursing shortage: Can information technology help?

After reading this article, I realized that not only our country are shortage of nurse but also in other country. There are several causes that had caused this phenomenon to happen.

Some of the primary factors cited for the growing shortage include an aging workforce among registered nurses (RNs), a declining number of new nursing students, and dissatisfaction with current working conditions that leads nurses to leave the profession.

Some solutions of this phenomenon regarding to information technology has been discussed in this article. There were questions like "what can be done to remedy it? Is information technology (IT) one of the answers?" appear in the article. The main solution that had been suggested in this article is 'Employing Clinical Systems'. The benefits of this solutions are also mention in the article.

Employing Clinical Information Systems as a Solution

While the intensity and composition of an acute care nurse's workload can be overwhelming, clinical information systems allow nurses more flexibility. Based on the experiences of the thousands of nurses who use clinical IT systems daily, they are able to spend more time delivering patient care, spend less time documenting the care they provide, and feel more confident about the quality of that care. Clinical information systems eliminate duplicate tasks, help nurses reduce errors, and keep documentation to a minimum.

The ideal clinical solution distills information to the right care provider context, monitors the information so that it fits the acute-care clinical workflow, and provides access at the appropriate time to all professionals who need that information. It promotes critical thinking by changing the workflow from task-oriented to outcomes-focused. As a result, clinicians are confident about the care they provide, errors are greatly reduced, and executives and administrators get the information they need to fine-tune operations and ensure that the organization is in compliance with regulations and best practices guidelines.

Clinical IT solutions can provide these benefits:
* Point-of-care clinical documentation.
* Automated medication administration. Physician order entry.
* Clinical data repository.

In conclusion, clinical information systems can be one of those immediate actions that can help nurses feel more confident about the care they are delivering. In addition to preventing medical errors, streamlining workflow and communications, and reducing redundant data entry, these systems can have a lasting and positive effect on overall job satisfaction, providing a significant influence on retaining our invaluable nursing resources.

To understand more about the article, you may visit this link for full article:http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FSW/is_1_20/ai_n18613248

Article 1: Is Technology Improving Nursing Care?

This is an article abstracted from the Canadian Nurses Association(CNA) website. It is a news releases.

This is an article about the importance of technology in nursing. From the article, i find out why and how important is it of the technology in improving nursing care. This is also the first time i read about the word 'E-nursing'. I learn a lot of new informations about nursing in other country and how advance are they to make use of technology in providing nursing care. There is some information below that i abstracted from the article...

E-nursing, the use of information and communication technology in nursing, is revolutionizing the way nurses interact with patients, deliver care and communicate with colleagues.

"Equipment such as computer terminals on hospital units, laptops for community health nurses and personal digital assistants for charting at the bedside are as necessary as stethoscopes for health-care providers to do their jobs," says Deborah Tamlyn, president of CNA. "Information and communications technology is an integrated and essential part of health-care practice."

"Technological innovation has swept the globe, and nurses have accepted the challenge this evolution brings," says Lucille Auffrey, chief executive officer of CNA. "Today, nurses work in a variety of e-health programs such as tele-triage. They access online libraries and databases of clinical practice guidelines in their workplaces and interact with their peers in discussion groups over the Internet. Nurses are also involved in developing standards to implement electronic health records, and many nursing educational programs are now offered online."

In order to make the nurses and health career expert in the information technology, the CNA has launched NurseONE. It is one of the strategy that the CNA launched to improve the information technology skills and knowledge of nurses.

As part of its e-nursing strategy CNA launched NurseONE, the Canadian Nurses Portal, today. NurseONE (INF-Fusion in French) is personalized and interactive to help nurses in Canada and around the world care for their patients, manage their careers and connect with colleagues and experts with the click of a mouse. NurseONE supports the depth and breath of nursing in all practice settings – clinical, education, administration and research.

To get more information about this article, you may visit this link for full article: http://www.cna-aiic.ca/CNA/news/releases/public_release_e.aspx?id=205

Summary of the Group discussion: "Blogging" + "Nursing"

In my Yahoo! Group, we had discussed something about blogging and nursing. This is my question.

"Why do we as a student nurse need to learn about creating a blog since we are not using it in the ward?if we learn it and create it for the purpose of the IT course, do u think that student nurse will continue blogging after they finish this course?"

For the first question, someone said that blogging can be a tool to share information among a certain group of individuals of shared interests or maybe even profession. Blogging give us the opportunity to share our thoughts about what happened in the wards, and also view other people's blogs to get info about theirs. Continuous blogging can helps us to build a strong relationship among the colleague besides improving the nursing career as we can share many information and gaining new idea regarding the life and profession. Although we do not use in the world, it is beneficial to learn new things.

Someone also said that blogging can help our thinking to be more expanded and open-minded and not limit to our surrounding only. By sharing information and discussing anything that came out in our mind in our blog, this can be one way to release our tension after a long day working and facing many patients' behaviour. We can share anything that we want to tell people about our daily activity, our feelings and etc.. this can reduce our stress level. In conclusion, this is the world full of IT, blogging has been used so widely in this world, so as a nurse, we must know how to use it in order to get the newest and latest information.

For the second question, I had set up a poll related to it in order to get more accurate response.

Question
blogging..do you think that you will continue blogging after this course?
Yes
No

From the poll, I get the result that 61% of my Group members which mean 11 persons will continue blogging after the IT course while 38% of my Group members which mean 7 persons will not continue blogging after this course. People who choose the answer 'Yes' might due to the answer that they gave in the first question. People who choose the answer 'No' have their own reason.

They think that not everyone can surf Internet in their home. Plenty of work and their own commitment that need to be done after they graduated and time is limited if compared to the time which they have during their studies. Besides, someone said that nurse is a job that work on different shift, they may have limited time to write blog. But all of this is all depend on personal whether to continue or not. Maybe after 1o years time in future, there is wireless in every way or in the whole country and we can surf Internet whenever and wherever we like. There is no problem about difficulty in access to the Internet exist again in future. There is nothing that we can predict what will happen in future.

As a owner/moderator of the Group, how do you manage your Group?

On the first day of the IT class, we were ask to create a Yahoo! Group. So, now each of us have our own group. We were ask to think of one topic and discuss in our own Group. In my group, I had come out with topic about "blogging" and as the owner of the group, I have to facilitate the discussion in order to make the group work well and complete the discussion. How?

First : Planning.
I plan about the discussion and my Group. I plan about the question that I am going to ask. I make sure that my question is not sensitive to anyone. I also make sure that my question is simple and easy to understand in order to prevent anyone discuss out of topic. Then, I also set a poll in my Group. The question of the poll is related to the topic in the discussion. Through this poll, i can get more accurate and specific answer from my Group members. This poll can help the members to understand more about the question in the discussion.

Second : Monitoring
After posting the question in my Group, I will spend some time everyday to the computer lab to read on the messages that my Group members reply. This is to make sure that my Group members are discussing according to the topic and not out of topic. At the same time, I will also reply and give my opinion about the messages that my Group members have post. If my members have any question about the discussion, I will try my best to answer them too. This is the way that I monitor the discussion in my Group.

Third : Evaluating
After all the members had reply to the discussion and complete the discussion, i will read all the messages again and collect all different answer and response that given by all members. I will also closed the poll and collect the data from the poll which can give me actual number about who agree and who disagree about the topic. At last, I will make a conclusion by using all the information that collect from the discussion and poll. I will also post the conclusion in the Group in order to share with my Group members.

Journal on how to create a digital group/portfolio.

On the first day of IT class, I had learnt to create a Group in Yahoo. A Group is a place where you can invite your friends to become group members and have discussion in the group. You can exchange idea or opinion among your group members in the group. It is not difficult to create a Group. You just need to follow a few steps.


Step 1: Log in to your Yahoo account.

Step 2: Click on "Start your group".

Step 3: You can choose your Groups Category. You can either choose your group category in the list or you can type in the space prepared to search the group categories that you want and not in the list.

Step 4: To be more specific to categorize your group, you need to choose the group category that are more specific again.

Step 5: You can either continue to search for Group Category that best descibes your Group or if the Group Category that your choose in the previous is enough to describe your Group, you can click on "Place my group here" to continue to the next step.

Step 6: Decribe your Group. You need to fill in some details about your Group. Afer filling all the details,click on "Continue".

Step 7: The last step. Select your Yahoo! profile and email address for your Group. Then click on "Continue". Then after this, you will have your own Group.

After your group have created, you can start to invite your friends to join your group. Then, you can post messages in your group so that you can have discussion with your members. You can share photo or file with your friends in the group. As the group owner, you can also edit the membership in order to prevent people tht you don't know to join the group.

Journal on how to create a signature in email and the importance of the email signature.

Before entering the IT class, I never think of using a signature everytime i sent mail. During the first day of the IT class, the lecturer introduced us the email signature and taught us how to create a signature. Actually create a signature is not complicated. What you need to do is follow the few steps below and you can have your own signature and it appear in your mail everytime you sent out.


Step 1: Log in to your email account.


Step 2: Find the word "Options" and click on it.


Step 3: Click on "Mail Options".

Step 4: Click on "Signature"

Step 5: You can start to create your own signature. You can do a lot things on your signature. You can change the text font, font size, font colour and many more. You can even insert emotions in your signature. Lastly, tick on the box of "Add signature to all outgoing messages". Then, everytime you send mail, your signature will automatically appear in your mail.

An email signature is important in an email. The main advantages of an email signature are ease and time-saving. When you have a simple thank you that need to send to your friends, you do not need to type again your name in your email messages, your signature that include you name will automatically added to your email messages, imagine how convenience of having it. However, email signatures become much more useful once you put in your contact details including your web site address, phone numbers and alternate email addresses - the recipient will immediately know how to contact you!

Nursing...

I put nursing as the first choice when applying for the IPTA. I never thought that i will get this course before because with my STPM result, i don't think i can get it. Actually when i pick this course, quite a lot of people came and ask me, "why do you choose nursing?" "you are interested to become a nurse?"...i knew they were quite surprise and me myself was quite surprise too because for my whole life, i never think of becoming a nurse. So when they ask me, my answer is always "there is always a vacancy for a nurse, i don't need to worry about finding a job in future". This is my answer before entering the university. But after studying one semester in this course, i found that i have different answer for the question.

For most people, they might think that nurse is always doing some cleaning job, but actually no. Nurse can do a lot of things which can really help a patient to recover. A nurse care for the patient. A nurse give medication as prescribed by the doctor to the patient in the ward. A nurse can do dressing and help patient to clean their wound. Nurses are really doing a lot of work and work hard in the hospital to help the patient to heal. Nurses help people to regain their health. I gained a lot of knowlegde which not only can help in taking care the patient but also my family and friends.

 

So now if there is someone who come ask me the same question about why i want to become a nurse, i will answer "I want to help people and love to help people. That's is why i become a nurse." 

hi hi..

This is my first time writing blog. A lot of my friends have a blog and they did invite me to write a blog, but due to my lazyness, i just reject...but still, at last, i still need to create a blog and become a blogger because of a course i am taking in my study now which are 'FJ1623 Teknologi Maklumat Kejururawatan'. Advance right?the course is teaching me how to create a blog..but anyhow, in order to let me survive and succeed in this course, i will fight with my lazyness in order to let my blog always exist..hope anyone who read this can wish me good luck.