Nursing I.T. Award Nominations Sought

rninformatics, DNP, RN · Oct 16, 2009

Nominations are now being accepted for Health Data Management and CARING's fifth annual Nursing Information Technology Innovation Award. The deadline for submitting an essay is Dec. 2.

The award recognizes innovation and excellence in using information technology in the field of nursing to directly improve the quality of care and patient safety while maximizing nursing resources. The co-sponsor of the award is CARING, the nation's largest educational and networking group for nurses interested in health care information technology.

The award will be presented to a team of nursing professionals at a health care organization (hospital, physician group practice or any other care-giving site). At least one of the primary coordinators of the I.T. project must be a nurse. The project must be ongoing.

To qualify for this award, a health care organization must submit an essay with detailed information on the nursing information technology project and the specific, measurable results of that project. The contribution of nurses to the innovative project must be clearly identified.

Judges, who will include nurses, will interview finalists by phone before determining the award recipient. The March 2010 issue of the magazine will include a story on the winning organization and runners-up.

To enter, submit a document attached to an e-mail to [email protected]. At the top of the document, list the following:

* Name of organization and address.

* Description of size of organization (total physicians, total inpatient licensed beds, and so forth).

* Name of key nurse(s) involved in the project, and their roles.

* Name of person who prepared the nomination and contact information (phone and e-mail).

* Name of senior executive with organization who could be available to answer questions, and contact information.

Entrants should prepare an essay of up to 1,000 words answering the following three questions:

1. What is the nursing I.T. project that is worthy of recognition? Precisely identify the technology involved.

2. What is innovative/groundbreaking about the project?

3. What are the measurable results/outcomes of the project? Be as specific and detailed as possible. Examples of results can include: achieving tangible improvements in the quality of care; reducing the time nurses spend on non-care activities by automating tasks; and improving workload management through telehealth technologies and other systems.

In addition, the essay should describe the contribution of nurse(s) to the project and whether the nurse(s) was the project leader, product manager, trainer, implementer or executive sponsor.

Questions about the award should be e-mailed to howard.anderson@sourcemedia.

See the same article in Health Data Management at http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/Nursing-39204-1.html or http://www.caringonline.org