Research Focuses on Heart Health

It is a fact. Heart disease is the number one killer of women in this country. Nurse researchers at Decker School of Nursing at Binghamton University are embarking on a grant funded research study on the improvement of heart healthy behaviors of women living in rural areas. Researchers will use two techniques in an effort to encourage study participants to be physically active, eat at least five servings of fruit and vegetables daily and not smoke.

ASC-TSJC Nursing Program Expands

The nursing shortage experienced in this country is twice the national average in the state of Colorado (11%). It is even more accenuated in rural areas. And, the Colorado Center for Nursing Excellence predicts the shortage will perhaps nearly triple by 2020. There needs to be a significant increase in the number of nursing students and educators in order to stave off this estimate.
The joint nursing program received a major boost this summer, with the award of a 3-year, $330,048 Health Professions Initiative Grant from the Colorado Trust. The grant funded the addition of two nursing faculty members at Adams State, providing greater mentoring for program faculty and allowing time for TSJC instructors to upgrade their qualifications. Program faculty teach on both campuses.

U.S. agency pushes use of electronic health records

There has been much discussion regarding the adoption of the Electronic Health Record (EHR). Havenstein reports the involvement of the government in encouraging citizens to embrace the adoption of EHRs by twirling "breakthrough projects" at the Health Information and Management Systems Society conference. In the past the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health Information Technology has focused their efforts on encouraging physicians and hospitals to adopt the EHR. However, now the ONC is narrowing in on informing patients about the EHR in order to create a certain "demand" by the public. I think that ONC's efforts may work with patients that have a higher level of education, however I am concerned about those patients that are not aware of the uses of technology in healthcare environments. As in education, healthcare officials need to be constantly aware of the digital divide and look to reduce the division so all citizens have an opportunity to understand the advantages and disadvanatges of healthcare technology.

DataLabs Announces eClinical Collaboration Software to Manage Clinical Trial Processes

A recent press release informed readers of Data Lab's "Site Manager (TM)." Site Manager is an innovative clinical trial software that affords researchers the opportunity to efficiently select clinicl trial sites. This program was created by "Broadpeak," and then purchased by DataLabs in 2005. Site Manager facilitates all internal and external collaboration for study activities, from start to finish and it accelerates the time for recruiting qualified investigators, initiating each site (including the collection and versioning of regulatory documents), communicating with investigative sites, and providing a central portal in which to manage the progress of each clinical trial.

Disaster Preparedness

Jossi reports on the importance of data backup and adequate storage- especially in the event of a natural disaster. Last year's storms that devastated the Gulf Coast reminds us about the need to prepare for natural disasters. Humans become complacent and believe it will never happen to them or their environment. This article points to some very interesting facts and suggests what one needs to do to have adequate plans in place.

Thoughteracy for All

A colleague sent me this "thoughtful article" on literacy. Interesting for educators to ponder.

Such limited and primarily alphabet-based definitions of literacy may have been appropriate, and perhaps even sufficient, until the emergence of sophisticated tools of information and communications technologies, such as the computer, cell phone, video cameras, text scanners and text-to-speech converters, and voice recognition and language translation technologies. These new and versatile technologies will slowly but surely initially diminish and then eventually altogether do away with peoples’ reliance on soon to be obsolete skills such as reading and writing.