Cardiopulmonary Telerehabilitation.

Cardiopulmonary telerehabilitation is a safe and effective alternative to traditional center-based rehabilitation. It offers a sustainable solution to more conveniently meet the needs of patients with acute or chronic, preexisting or newly acquired, cardiopulmonary diseases. To maximize success, programs should prioritize basic, safe, and timely care options over comprehensive or complex approaches.

Twenty Plus Years of Distance Learning: Lessons Learned.

Private institutions of higher education in the United States were hesitant to institute programs of distance learning for fear that they could not maintain the quality of the education they had delivered in face-to-face programs. Vanderbilt University allowed their School of Nursing to embark on such an endeavor in 1996, as long as quality measures were incorporated. The result has been a comprehensive resource support team using Quality Matters and an increase in program rankings.

Using Contemporary e-Learning Tools to Teach Staff How to Use New Online Documentation Systems.

Medical centers, hospitals, and health care practices are implementing electronic documentation systems and regularly adding new features to these systems. Training users to effectively use these systems in a scalable way has been a challenge. Learners learn at different rates and have different needs.

Designing New Buildings to Accommodate Current Technologies.

Growing higher educational programs are always interested in adding physical facilities to their campus. Many times the initial plans do not include all the technology details needed for either a standard or a cutting-edge program. This paper describes planning and implementation efforts at the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing, which has resulted in a new 29,947-square-foot facility addition.

Expanding Virtual Reality to Teach Ultrasound Skills to Nurse Practitioner Students.

This team has had prior successful production efforts in the use of Second Life to implement a virtual reality world into both nursing education and practice. Our current efforts center around a virtual reality application that provides learners with the opportunity to master competencies in the use of ultrasound technologies, which have surfaced in many nurse practitioner certifications as a necessary skill. Using the authoring tool of CenarioVR™, and capturing video footage of a nurse practitioner using the ultrasound equipment, students can don a VR headset for an immersive experience.

Distance Education Programs: The Technical Support to Be Successful.

Academic success requires support on a variety of levels as well as access to contemporary tools and services. Supporting students enrolled in a successful higher education distance learning program, requires a strong, properly trained IT support staff in addition to a stable IT environment. Our distance education program began with a regional market but has grown significantly over the past few years.

Integrating Informatics Content into the Nursing Curriculum.

Contemporary nursing curricula require that nursing informatics content be integrated across the various levels of the programs that are offered. Many such programs face national accreditation requirements that typically relate more to technology than to informatics. International standards vary in these requirements.

Using the Virtual Reality World of Second Life to Promote Patient Engagement.

Patients have typically been passive participants in their own healthcare. However, with a change in philosophy towards outcomes driven care, it has become necessary to make sure that patients mutually set their healthcare goals with their providers Both eHealth and mobile health applications have required patient participation in ways never before valued. The virtual reality world of Second Life offers one eHealth solution that requires computer literate patients to participate via avatars in synchronous healthcare visits and support groups, as well as explore online resources asynchronously.

Characterization of immune cells in psoriatic adipose tissue.

Background: Adipose tissue normally contains immune cells that regulate adipocyte function and contribute to metabolic disorders including obesity and diabetes mellitus. Psoriasis is associated with increased risk for metabolic disease, which may in part be due to adipose dysfunction, which has not been investigated in psoriasis. There is currently no standardized method for immunophenotyping human adipose tissue.

The role of technology and informatics in disaster planning and response.

It is clear that technology and informatics are becoming increasingly important in disasters and humanitarian response. Technology is a critical tool to recording, analyzing, and predicting trends in data that could not be achieved prior to its implementation. Informatics is the translation of this data into information, knowledge, and wisdom.

Extending nurse practitioner care using the virtual reality world of second life.

The growth of Internet applications has substantially broadened the potential for its use in global telehealth. This pilot project used the virtual reality world of Second Life for diabetic patients to meet with their nurse practitioners for their maintenance visits. Using avatars and the online patient portal, these scheduled visits were designed to meet the needs of the patients as determined by the results from a questionnaire completed by patients prior to the visit.

Research issues for nursing and midwifery contributions in emergencies.

This special report was prepared as a white paper for the First World Health Organization (WHO) Consultation on Nursing and Midwifery Contributions in Emergencies held in Geneva on 22-24 November 2006. Pertinent issues related to research of nurses and midwives were identified based on prior international conferences. Using this information, gaps between the current and proposed state of preparedness research activities were identified.

An analysis of nursing education's immersion into Second Life, a multi-user virtual environment (MUVE).

Second Life (SL) is a multi-user virtual environment (MUVE) using 3-D modeling to replicate real world settings and experiences. However, little is known of the extent to which nursing education is involved in SL activities. This study used four different search strategies to conduct a comprehensive review of print, blog, web and media sources.

Teaching during a pandemic event: are universities prepared?

As the threat of pandemic events streaks across the planet, the question then becomes can universities, particularly health science centers charged with producing the next generation of health care providers, continue their teaching and educational mission by offering classes in a distance environment, completely uncentralized, away from the traditional centralized campus? A sampling of campus websites were reviewed to gather a sense of how well prepared we are, followed up with a survey administered to faculty and staff in the School of Nursing at Vanderbilt University. The concern being that if a technology rich environment such as Vanderbilt is not fully prepared to continue teaching in a pandemic event, what concerns should we have for other institutions providing health care provider education that may not have access to the resources a Vanderbilt has? Finally, a set of recommendations to schools is presented, based on the findings.

Using the virtual reality world of second life to teach nursing faculty simulation management.

Healthcare faculty members have come to depend on the advantages of teaching with clinical simulation, but not all faculty are competent in their ability to manage students during the simulation experience. This federally funded proposal provided the opportunity for nursing faculty to participate in a synchronous learning event using the virtual reality world of Second Life (SL). Based on competencies, faculty participants were guided through the simulation process by a "Master Teacher.

The emerging role of educational informatics.

Initial growth in the field of nursing informatics has centered primarily on the clinical setting. Much has been written about the systems developed and evaluated and possible new roles that one can play in the clinical environment. The educational arena has not fared as well.

Nursing informatics for future nurse scholars: lessons learned with the doctorate of nursing practice (DNP).

The addition of the DNP created challenges that resulted in a re-evaluation of the leveling of informatics competencies across the nursing curriculum. The knowledge and skills needed by informatics nurse specialists was differentiated from those needed by three levels of nurses (entry level practitioner, advanced practice nurse, and nurse scholar (both PhD and DNP)). After a thorough review of the literature and examination of various competencies and definition for nursing informatics, a new model was proposed and guided the creation and implementation of a core course in informatics for DNP students.

Risk of hand-foot skin reaction with the multitargeted kinase inhibitor sunitinib in patients with renal cell and non-renal cell carcinoma: a meta-analysis.

Hand-foot skin reaction (HFSR) is an emerging issue in cancer treatment with multitargeted tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), leading to morbidity, suboptimal dosing, and poor compliance. The overall risk of HFSR is not clear for sunitinib, a TKI effective for metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and gastrointestinal stromal tumor. We therefore conducted a systematic review and a meta-analysis to determine the risk of developing HFSR with sunitinib.

Supporting the integration of technology into contemporary nursing education.

This article provides an overview of the challenges and strategies faced by educational administrators in planning, delivering, and evaluating technology services to today's nursing students and faculty. Academic technology uses, examples, and support suggestions are provided so that educational administrators can effectively choose appropriate technologies geared to meet their educational objectives. The challenge comes with deciding the intended educational outcomes, and designing the appropriate educational milieu.

Data mining results from an electronic clinical log for nurse practitioner students.

Traditional techniques for collecting data on clinical experiences have been greatly flawed. Data cannot be easily collected in real time to make programmatic or placement changes "on the fly". Furthermore, it is difficult to look at data across students, specialty areas, and years because the data is typically not in a digital format.

Informatics solutions for emergency planning and response.

Early informatics contributions to the emergency planning and response agenda have focused largely on surveillance of threat detection. A broader assessment of possible informatics contributions unveils that informatics can also contribute to increasing the efficiency in disaster response as well as providing a tele-presence for remote medical caregivers. This presentation will explore current and future roles of informatics in emergency preparedness and response.

Preparing nurses internationally for emergency planning and response.

Competency-based education provides an international infrastructure for nurses to learn about emergency preparedness and response. The International Nursing Coalition for Mass Casualty Education (INCMCE) has developed competencies for all nurses, as well as online modules for meeting those competencies. In addition, other curriculum resources are available that range from face-to-face classes, web-based modules, and electronic journals, to complete pre-packaged materials.

Demonstration: An online clinical log for nurse practitioner students.

The Vanderbilt University School of Nursing (VUSN) has advanced practice nursing students in clinical experiences across the USA who are required to provide written documentation on their encounters. Prior log activities had consisted of responses on optical scan sheets and descriptive logs submitted at the end of each semester. Faculty wanted a more contemporary and efficient environment that would allow students to collect their clinical log data at their point of care and enter into an online database.