Tomorrow is the first day for the new class at the College of Nursing. I have been at the college for over a week now in final preparations for the new student intake. There are multiple challenges ahead of the new vision the College has decided to undertake, but all of them are achievable and necessary to revive the current degree program, and to prepare the next generation of nurses entering the country’s health care system.
The systems that currently exist seem to be natural iterations of the college over the past three decades. A few filing cabinets, a dozen hand-written forms, and an under-reliance on technology. The last part shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that has visited this country, technology in most forms seem to be a recent inclusion in any school curriculum. Last year a donation of much-needed equipment from the CDC and PEPFAR have injected a bright future into the program, and there is the prospect of delivering nursing students with a great background and familiarity with the role of IT in nursing.
Delivering this background is where I am most excited to be involved. As part of the introduction to IT in nursing, I have created a presentation that I will give to the new students during their orientation week at the College. Although several TED conference videos are applicable, I chose a few minutes from Eric Topol’s “The Wireless Future of Medicine.” In this video from 2009 he highlights some of the apps and the tools that are available for smartphones. The smartphone is a device that the students can readily accept and be comfortable with. The majority of people I have met here know someone that has an internet-capable phone. Many people know someone that has a “smartphone” by the standards of my own country. Nice phones are common even in households where there is no reliable electricity.
The personal computer itself is far less common. Although they cost the same amount here as a new smartphone, in daily life few people require or have access to PC to assist them with their work. So in the favor of the students of today, and the nurses of tomorrow smartphones will likely be a prominent source of information and a great tool for their careers. Regardless of which end-use device the students will spend more of their time interfacing with, part of my intention in assisting with curriculum development, is to teach the students what they need for tomorrow, and not the outdated practices they may find today. The computing trends in this country are woefully behind the curve, and it would be a disservice to send these students through a tow year program only to come out the other side and already be behind.
Beyond just the curriculum I am excited to engage the College staff in their new endeavor to modernize many of the existing systems in use at the school. I am pleased that the principal, staff, and board are all together in this mission. Due to scarcity of funds I’m eying as much open-source software as possible. The next several weeks will be a very exciting time to showcase where IT can be not only in the national healthcare system, but in the country as a whole.