Discussion #2: Identifying IT Infrastructures

Although many health care organizations use the same equipment; employ similar personnel; and have standard procedures, protocols, and processes, no two organizations will have the same information technology (IT) infrastructure. This difference among IT infrastructures is attributable to varying policy decisions, procedures, system designs, budgets, and organizational cultures. So you can be an effective nurse informaticist, it is critical that you are very familiar with the IT infrastructure at your own organization and are aware of the reasoning behind it. Being conversant on the system enables you to more effectively work within the system and to better promote the appropriate HIT tool.

In your Practicum experience, you have been familiarizing yourself with a health care organization and its IT infrastructure, as well as with how data and information are handled within the organization. For this Discussion, you provide a brief summary of your findings.

To prepare:

Review your Journal notes.
Identify the relevant features of the IT infrastructure of the organization.
Consider the strengths and weaknesses of the IT infrastructure.
Reflect on the current role of nursing informatics in this organization and how it could be strengthened.

By Wednesday 02/08/2017, post a minimum of 1 to 2-page in APA format and at least 2 scholarly references. Include the level one headings as numbered below:

1) A brief description of your Practicum site (without naming the site).

2) Then, describe the IT infrastructure at this site, assessing its strengths and weaknesses.

3) Explain the role of nursing informatics within this organization and how the role could be strengthened.

Note: My Practicum site is Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland (USA). Please refer to attached PDF file. You can also find out more about it on https://mdmercy.com/

You can also choose to speak on any other hospital that you are familiar with, but don’t name it

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.Discussion #2: Identifying IT Infrastructures