The University of Central Florida College of Nursing kicked off the fall semester with an evening lecture on how to better use electronic health records to improve health care.
Sharon McLane, chief nursing informatics officer and director of clinical transformation at Lakeland Regional Medical Center, shared her knowledge and expertise on the subject, and discussed the impact of electronic records on nursing workflow and how to manage all the information available. McLane earned her Ph.D. in Healthcare Informatics at the University of Texas, Houston, and previously was director of nursing informatics at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
The free lecture – Beyond Implementation: Informaticians & Meaningful Use – was open to the public and attended by healthcare administrators, clinical nurse leaders, community partners, prospective and current students, and nursing faculty. One attendee even traveled two hours from Tampa to attend the event. Nurses had the opportunity to earn one contact hour of continuing education credit.
McLane said, “We are just beginning to become aware of the possibilities in using information to improve quality in healthcare,” adding that managing the increasing amount of information will be needed even more in the future.
The Aug. 23 event supported by Florida Blue, formerly Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida, was part of the college’s semiannual Distinguished Lecture Series where a national leader is invited to discuss current nursing leadership topics. The series spans two days, including the evening community lecture, followed by a day-long intensive seminar with the visiting professor and faculty and students in the Executive Doctor of Nursing Practice program.
Launched this past January, the Executive D.N.P. is an online program, but the college brings faculty and students together at the beginning of the spring and fall semesters to discuss thought-provoking leadership topics with a national nursing leader.
The next Distinguished Lecture for the community will be held Jan. 10 to kick off the spring semester, and to welcome the second cohort of Executive D.N.P. students.
To learn more about the Executive D.N.P. program, visit nursing.ucf.edu [1] or contact Dr. Diane Andrews at diane.andrews@ucf.edu [2].