Happy New Year

And 2010 is starting with a bang, literally and figuratively.

The Haiti earthquake is creating a ripple effect on how people donate to charities as noted in this article on texting for a cause (from www.usatoday.com). Also in Haiti, Partners in Health is proving IT can make healthcare delivery possible, even in remote areas of the country without landlines (from www.healthcareitnews.com)

iPods and iPhones have become commonplace in everyday living, but in hospitals? Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, CA is bringing them to their hospital to end the clutter of multiple pagers and other devices nurses are required to carry. At the University of North Carolina, interpreters are using them as well to get rid of pagers.

Finally, since grad school will be starting again soon, I've been checking out a few things on SNOMED. Want to know more? Check out this page at the National Library of Medicine.

Disaster planning

Yes, it's a big deal in IT, and some people can't get enough of it. I found a great article at techsoup recently about this very subject. It's geared to non-profits, but the concepts are important nevertheless, and some of the tools can be used at home, and best of all, some are free. CSO Online has a great general section on disaster planning called Business Continuity and Disaster Planning Also, if you're interested in disaster planning in general, don't forget to check www.ready.gov.

Second, for individuals, disaster planning is a big deal, too, and not just with computers. If you own a Sidekick phone, you may be interested in this article. One server goes down and takes all your info with it...ouch!

And finally, while it's not a natural disaster, phishing and social engineering can cause lots of other disasters. This article called 9 Dirty Tricks discusses just a few of the latest scams out there.

Tales from graduate school

Well, here I am at school...and with you all. How am I doing it? I am doing it by way of distance learning and learning management tools, such as Blackboard.

I tried to start earlier by reading ahead, but I inadvertently bought the wrong book. Many titles by giants in particular areas look si milar or have similarities in titles, authors or groups of authors. Moral of the story: get the ISBN. When you have the ISBN, you'll never, ever buy the wrong book (90% of the time).

For the most part, I'm enjoying myself. I've upgraded my laptop and as a result, I'm having fun today moving some files from the old one via Belkin's Easy Transfer cable. I'll update you on that once I get it done.

I'm looking forward to using more collaboration tools in Blackboard as well as other tools such as Skype to work with my group. If nothing else, this course will help me learn more about online collaboration.

eICU

A co-worker was talking about this concept because she had the fortune (or misfortune) of being an ICU patient recently. She found it highly entertaining that she was being monitored from afar, and that the person doing the monitoring actually interacted with her.

This article discusses a recent study about the effectiveness of eICU and telemonitoring in ICUs.

In the news and helpful hints

VA halts 45 IT projects (from www.healthcareitnews.com)

SSO provides relief for password headaches (also www.healthcareitnews.com)
SSO, or Single Sign On, is one, long overdue piece that is left out of many network authentication systems. Signing on to multiple information systems (mainframe, PC, etc.) during the course of a day can be mind-boggling, considering security and logging issues in hospital systems.

HINT: Do yourself a favor--rotate your passwords in a scheme you can remember. Don't write them down, but do write down any hints that may help you remember your scheme. If you rotate them regularly, based on your network rules (every 30, 60, 90 days, etc.), it's easier to remember, too. There are some password keeper programs (such as this one from SplashData) you may be able to use on a personal device (i.e. PDA, smartphone). Whatever you do...don't write your passwords down anywhere they can be used to access your account.

Ask your system administrator (if they'll tell you) how many unique passwords you need to have in a year. Many system administrators require xx amount of unique passwords per year or per system. In one of my former lives, our system kept a record of your last 6 passwords; another system only four.

Great video

As a nurse, you're subject to lots of demands for your time and lots and lots of in-services on new equipment and procedures.

Here's a funny look at information overload courtesy of Xerox.

Online sources...beware!

Time and time again we read about mistakes. Here's another strike against Wikipedia: Irish student hoaxes world media.

Vet your sources carefully!