Rutgers 30th Conference – Final Round-up, Part 2

Among presentations at the final day and a half of the Rutgers College of Nursing’s Thirtieth Annual International Interprofessional Technology Conference, in New Brunswick, New Jersey:

Debra Wolf explored the role of the informatics nurse, while Bonnie Anton built on her overview and noted that the role is becoming increasingly patient-focused, with new competencies needed in supporting the delivery of health information for consumers; these include issues of information literacy and health literacy. Bonnie also addressed the role of social media, as communications tools, for user-generated, collaboration activities, and enabling patients and others to find ‘people like me’, although raised issues of “is it safe?” She raised the need to include the patient as an active member of the healthcare team, and aspects of Health 2.0 and educational guidelines re:social media use were introduced.

Dennis Crain explored the proliferation of private data on the internet (‘digital exhaust’) that can be collected, mined, and used for personalised targeting of products. Greg Alexander focused on ageing populations, and how advances in science, medicine etc have lead to reductions in mortality, leading into an exploration of monitoring devices and systems for home care. Bernie Garrett (University of British Columbia) explored “Using Web 2.0 tools to globalise the curriculum”, and discussed the International Science Education Partnerships Project (Canada-UK links), a pilot project to establish the potential of freely available social networking tools to support educational international partnerships. The project generated discussion on the value of philosophical perspectives, and evaluated the potential of using tools
(more information at http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/staff/rcutting). Evaluation of the project was done with surveys/questionnaires and online focus groups (plus Google Analytics).

In the closing keynote, Marion Ball explored a wide range of issues around using smarter technology to improve health globally. Among here messages, she raised questions of “are we asking the right questions?” and whether the workload for clinicians has been increased through use of IT, rather than reducing it. She covered a wide range of topics including TIGER, IBM’s Watson, and other developments.

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