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Nursing Researchers to Address
New Standardized Clinical Data System

Posted February 3, 2003

HOLLAND -- An address at Hope College by two researchers from the University of Michigan will examine their team's effort to improve nursing care by standardizing the way that clinical data is collected and understood.

Dr. Gail Keenan, who is the project's principal investigator, and research associate Julia Stocker will discuss the "Hands-on Automated Nursing Data System" (HANDS) on Thursday, Feb. 13, at 7:30 p.m. in the Maas Center conference room. The address is the first being sponsored by the Hope College Student Nurses Association.

The public is invited. Admission is free.

While nationally accepted standards already exist, the researchers found that interpretations have varied by setting and institution, with the result that data concerning similar care situations is not always comparable. The computerized system that the team is developing is intended to provide a means of collecting and sharing a standardized nursing data set across settings.

The researchers believe that the consistency and the availability of the information will ultimately benefit patients by helping health care providers, researchers and organizations to be more efficient and effective.

Keenan is on the faculty in the Division of Nursing Business and Health Care Systems at the University of Michigan School of Nursing in Ann Arbor. She has written or co-authored multiple book chapters and articles in professional journals. A registered nurse, she has had clinical experience in a variety of settings.

She holds her doctorate in public health/health resource management from the University of Illinois, and was a postdoctoral fellow in nursing informatics at the University of Iowa College of Nursing. She holds a master of science in nursing services administration from the University of Illinois, a bachelor of science in nursing from Rutgers University and a diploma in nursing from Saint Anthony's School of Nursing.

Stocker is a student in the doctoral program at the University of Michigan School of Nursing in Ann Arbor. She is also a registered nurse with experience in a variety of clinical settings.

She holds a master of science in community health nursing from the University of California, San Francisco, a bachelor of science in nursing from the University of Michigan and a diploma in nursing from Bronson Methodist Hospital School of Nursing in Kalamazoo.

The Maas Center is located on Columbia Avenue at 11th Street. More about the research project may be found online at: www.umich.edu/~handsmi/

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