Paper
Monday, November 5, 2007
444
In the Palm of Your Hand: Strategies for PDA Integration within Undergraduate Nursing Curricula in the Classroom & Clinical Settings
Jami Michelle Nininger, MS, RN, CCRN, Nursing, The Ohio State University College of Nursing, Columbus, OH, USA and Tara Lynn Spalla, RN, MSN, College of Nursing, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA.
| Learning Objective #1: identify relevant areas for PDA integration |
| Learning Objective #2: generate a list of activities most appropriate for PDA technology in the classroom and clinical settings |
The current trend for acquiring information while delivering patient care, is the use of Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) or handheld computers. This has occurred because of the explosion of technology in the health care arena and the need to use the most up to date information at the point of care. PDAs have revolutionized data acquisition in the clinical and classroom settings. The Millennials, those exposed to technology their entire lives, are most adept at acquiring electronic information and are equally proficient at the parallel processing and multitasking required for PDA usage. However, they grapple with narrowing the focus and finding the most salient pieces of information, much like highlighting a whole page in a nursing textbook. Nurse educators have been given the charge of teaching these students how to navigate through the plethora of electronic information, making the PDA more than just an expensive toy. Several innovative and successful strategies for incorporating PDAs into one undergraduate nursing curriculum have been developed in both the clinical and classroom settings. Nursing faculty who become astute explorers and users of this technology will be poised to effectively guide students through the maze of healthcare information, thus helping them to realize its potential to optimize their nursing practice.