Handy things to know about e-mail

I've seen some interesting articles in the last couple of days about sending e-mails at different times of day and night and when not to send.

Here are a few articles of interest about handling e-mail. The best advice: handle your e-mail very carefully! What may be good manners in real life doesn't always translate well into e-mail.

Experts reveal e-mail nightmares, safety tips (from www.cnn.com)
This CNN article has some great cautionary tales about using e-mail carefully.

Drunk, dangerous and at the keyboard (from www.nytimes.com)
While this article doesn't discuss e-mailing from work, it does make you realize that sometimes you just need to step away from the keyboard.

Interoperability

The big I is becoming more and more important for patients and healthcare staff. If you want to see a glimpse of the enormity of the discussions on this topic, search Google or your favorite search engine. The results for a recent search I did netted about 300,000 or so articles, from vendors, industry organizations and even ANSI sponsored groups, such as HITSP.

Interoperability of computer systems trickles down from the systems level, into the daily lives of a variety of personnel, including nurses. Most recently, the DOD (US Department of Defense) and VA (Veterans Administration) are working on this very issue to provide seamless healthcare to active military personnel and veterans.

A new technology/nursing article

This one arrived in my mailbox this morning courtesy of http://www.nursinglink.com/

Technology and nursing

A good iPhone read

If you love your iPhone, but wonder about what they left out, check out this article, Ten Features Still Missing from iPhone at www.informit.com.

InformIT is a great information technology resource that delves into security, certification and other business issues related to IT.

Need help? Just talk

That's what many LTC facilities are now doing to manage charting, paging and care plan use. Vocollect Healthcare has a product called AccuNurse which helps staff document and do their jobs more efficiently through voice technology.

If you are an LTC nurse and want to sell this product, they are looking for you, too. (See this job listing.)

Technology in the news

Hospitals and Health Networks magazine has an article about the implementation of IT on nursing in a rural hospital setting. Another article, also in this same magazine discusses wireless technology.

Since I carry a PalmPilot wherever I go, I'd be happy if there were more publicly accessible wireless access points in hospitals. It's very handy especially if your cell phone doesn't work well in the hospital.

One thing leads to another...

My post on a PDA question in one area led to this guest post on www.realityrn.com, which is a nursing site geared to new nurses.

See more on the story about technology and new nurses at www.realityrn.com.