"Re-Evolution in Nursing Informatics" was the theme of the fourth ANIA-CARING conference held in Boston, MA, April 22-24, 2010. The ANIA-CARING Conference Planning team did a stellar job in engaging excellent speakers and attracting exhibitors and attendees. Although the conference has a long history beginning as the ANIA conference, this was the first conference since the merger of ANIA and CARING January 2010. Thanks go to the Board of Directors of ANIACARING and specifically committee members: James J. Finley, Lisa Anne Bove, Victoria Bradley, Jerry Chamberlain, Bobbi Crann, Debra Fortin, Daniel Gracie, Libertad B. "Liberty" Rovira, Sally S. Russell, and Patrick G. Shannon.
There were five preconference sessions offering a more in-depth look at a variety of topics. The "Writing for Publication" tutorial was taught for another year by Kathleen C. Kimmel and Carlene Anteau. Lisa Anne Bove and Susan M. Houston repeated their popular "Program Management." "Making Change-Understanding the Team Mindset" was presented by Marina Douglas. Victoria M. Bradley and Steve Shaha lead the workshop entitled, "Substantiating Value: Evaluation Tools in HIT Implementation-Questionnaires and Focus Groups." A timely feature this year was "Nursing Informatics Impact on the National HIT Agenda" offered by Judy Murphy, Connie White Delaney, and Judith J. Warren.
In a twist from previous years, a welcome reception and regional meetings were held on Thursday night featuring dessert and a tea party. Four regional directors met with their respective constituents to discuss plans for meetings around the United States. The regional directors are Brian Norris, Stephen Prouse, and Patrick G. Shannon and Vickie Vallejos.
The main conference kicked off on Friday morning with a continental breakfast and the first of several opportunities to view posters. There were more than 35 poster presenters. For "Peoples' Choice Poster Award," attendees voted, and ribbons were presented to the top three winners. The winning poster was announced at Saturday's closing session, and the author awarded with one complimentary registration for the 2011 ANIA-CARING conference.
Peter J Murray, executive director, International Medical Informatics Association, was the opening keynote speaker. He discussed "A Boston IT Party-International Re-evolutions in Nursing Informatics." Dr Murray challenged attendees to answer whether a re-evolution of nursing can contribute to promoting health globally, nationally, and locally. He offered a historical overview of nursing informatics (NI), an international definition of NI, interests of NI, current concerns, and the future of NI. When he started talking about Boston, the audience soon discovered he was referring to the Boston in the United Kingdom and not Massachusetts. There were a few tense moments when it seemed as though Dr Murray might not be able to travel from the UK because of the volcano in Iceland, but to the delight of all, he made the trip.
Concurrent sessions were offered in four key tracks: education/career development, innovations in NI, improving systems implementations, and contributions to patient care. Susan K Newbold moderated the session entitled, "Data Sharing and Re-use: Are We There Yet?" involving authors Murielle Beene, Diane Bedecarre, Patricia Greim, and Janet Morris, who work at the Veterans Health Administration employing 75 000 nursing staff in more than 153 medical centers, 750 outpatient clinics, and 135 nursing homes. The session proved an overview of terminology and detailed clinical models created to prove consistent representation of meaning and how clinician review validated the accuracy and completeness of these models.
The ANIA-CARING Conference after the tea party luncheon on Friday was an opportunity to network as well as hear organization updates. Victoria Bradley, ANIA-CARING president, and other board members, presented the ANIA-CARING annual meeting reports to the membership. Tracy Shaben, Alberta, Canada, brought greetings from the Canadian Nursing Informatics Association. The membership report, presented by Susan K Newbold, included announcing the winners of the 2010 Nursing Information Technology Innovation Award. Amy Jacobs discussed the state of the treasury. Lisa Bove presented on the education plan. Denise Tyler discussed the newsletter and presented the Maggie Cox Newsletter award to Daniel Gracie complete with a $1000 scholarship. Seven former board members from ANIA and CARING were given an engraved candy dish for their years of service: Sandy Alfon, Barbara Medling, Linda Wittrup, Liberty Rovira, Katherine A. Holzmacher, Marianela Zytowski, and Cathy M. Walter.
Friday afternoon continued with concurrent sessions. There were almost too many from which to choose, among them "Is Health 2.0 Creating a New Generation of Empowered Consumers?" Authors Ramona Nelson, Bonnie B. Anton, and Debra M. Wolf described social networking tools using health-related examples. The session pointed out that when using a particular tool, one must understand the ramifications prior to use.
Having dessert in the exhibit hall on Friday gave attendees an opportunity to network, get reacquainted with colleagues and friends, meet new friends, and engage with the 19 exhibitors. A hearty thanks to all of the exhibitors who provided the attendees with the environment to learn and interact.
Following two more sets of concurrent sessions, Patricia Hinton-Walker spoke at the early evening general session on "Keys to 'Meaningful Use' Success: TIGER Initiative Phase III's Virtual Learning and Interdisciplinary Collaboration." Dr Walker revealed the goals of TIGER Phase III to include dissemination of the work of previous phases, the development and implementation of a virtual learning environment, and international collaboration.
On Saturday morning at the general session, Judy Murphy presented "Ten Steps for Creating your Roadmap to EHR Meaningful Use." She outlined the federal initiatives and agencies focused on increasing the widespread adoption of electronic health records (EHRs). The community is fortunate to have Ms Murphy represent nursing and healthcare on a federal committee.
Attendees had a choice of three more sets of four concurrent sessions on Saturday, making it impossible not to derive educational value. These sessions provided information that would be beneficial for the novice or the expert and anyone in between.
The closing general session featured Rosemary Kennedy from the National Quality Forum, who continued the conference theme with "Re-evolution of Quality Measurement Through Informatics." She explored national priorities and goals related to meaningful use of EHR data for purposes of quality measurement and performance improvement. Ms Kennedy gave examples showing how standardized quality data sets can enable the power of the EHR in quality measurement.
We had almost 400 attendees at this year's event and 19 exhibitors exceeding all previous conferences on both accounts. Attendees were from countries including Bermuda, Canada, England, Saudi Arabia, Slovenia, Taiwan, and the United States. Most of the presentations were available to attendees on a flash card distributed at the conference. Attendees could obtain up to 20.5 contact hours for participating. Evaluations indicated that most attendees received value from attending the conference. Conference photographs are available at http://www.ania-caring.org and on Facebook.
Next year's conference is scheduled for Las Vegas, NV, at the Las Vegas Hilton, May 12-14, 2011. The call for abstracts for posters and presentations is on July 19 to August 27, 2010. Please consider submitting an abstract for a poster and/or a presentation. See http://www.ania-caring.org for new information and membership. We look forward seeing many of you next year!