Browsing by Author "Neumeier, Melanie"

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    Access 2022: setting new goals for digital health in Canada
    (2019) Neumeier, Melanie
    Canada Health Infoway has been a champion for digital health access for all Canadians since its inception in 2001. As a government funded not-for-profit organization, Infoway works with Canadians, academics and a variety of health care organizations across the country to transform the delivery of health care in Canada. While huge strides have been made towards a digitally integrated system, Canada remains behind peer countries in access to care and digitally-enabled services (Infoway, 2019). In the 2017 Commonwealth Fund ranking of health care system performance, Canada ranked ninth out of eleven countries overall and was last in terms of access to care like same-day physician appointments and emergency department wait times (Green, 2018). This shows that while technology is advancing its application in health care is not keeping up.
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    Anatomical knowledge retention & interventional strategies in nursing education
    (2019) Neumeier, Melanie; Narnaware, Yuwaraj
    Creating experiential learning opportunities to improve knowledge acquisition and retention is a common goal in post-secondary education, but it may not be clear how to start. In this presentation, we discuss how to develop and use a knowledge retention study to identify gaps in learning and implement targeted learning strategies.
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    Anatomical knowledge retention in second‐year Bachelor of Science & Psychiatric Nursing students
    (2020) Narnaware, Yuwaraj; Neumeier, Melanie
    There is growing concern that nursing, medical and allied health students do not retain enough anatomical knowledge to confidently and successfully apply it in future classroom and clinical settings ( Doomernik et al., 2017). Evidence now shows that knowledge retention is impacted by many factors including admission criteria, teaching hours (Narnaware and Neumeier, 2019), age, sex, ethnicity, prior knowledge of science/biology, a gap between high school and university, and health care discipline (McVicar et al., 2015; Vogl , 2017). In Canada, the discipline of nursing can be subdivided into three professional designations, each with different educational requirements; Registered Nurses, Licensed Practical Nurses, and Registered Psychiatric Nurses (Canadian Nurses Association, 2019).
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    Anatomical knowledge retention in third-year nursing students
    (2021) Narnaware, Yuwaraj; Neumeier, Melanie
    Human anatomy and physiology are considered a cornerstone of any health related profession and serve as a pre requisite for future nursing courses and clinicals (McVicar et al., 2015). However, numerous studies suggest that students experience great difficulty in transferring the fundamental anatomical knowledge that they gain in the first year of their programs to future theory/clinical practice ( Gunay & Kilinc, 2018). Most of the knowledge transfer, loss and/or retention studies have been carried out in medical, allied health disciplines, and this has been assessed only in second year nursing students recently (Narnaware & Neumeier, 2020). This study seeks to determine the percent of anatomical knowledge retained by third year nursing students and determine the levels of knowledge retention in the body’s organ systems.
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    Are nursing/IT collaborations the key to maximizing health care apps?
    (2018) Neumeier, Melanie
    Nurses working with IT professionals to develop better mobile apps for health care is discussed. From the Trends and Issues in Nursing Informatics Column.
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    Building capacity of evidence-based practice: understanding how licensed practical nurses (LPNs) source knowledge
    (2018) Phillips, Leah; Neumeier, Melanie
    In Canada, all nurses are required to engage in evidence-based practice (EBP) as an entry-to-practice competency; however, there is little research that examines Licensed Practical Nurses’ (LPNs’) information seeking behaviors or preferred sources of knowledge to conduct EBP. Due to the differences in education and roles of LPNs and Registered Nurses (RNs), it is both necessary and important to gain an understanding of how LPNs utilize evidence in their unique nursing practice. The purpose of this study was to investigate how LPNs source knowledge for their nursing practice.
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    Can nursing informatics improve person-centred care?
    (2016) Neumeier, Melanie
    Improvements through technology to person-centred care is discussed. From the Trends and Issues in Nursing Informatics Column.
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    Fifteen years later: where are we at with our national integrated electronic health record?
    (2018) Neumeier, Melanie
    Barriers to a national Electronic Health Record (EHR) are discussed in the Trends and Issues in Nursing Informatics Column.
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    From linear care plan through concept map to Concepto-Plan: the creation of an innovative and holistic care plan
    (2018) McDonald, M. Sherry; Neumeier, Melanie; Olver, Mark E.
    Linear care plans have traditionally been used in nursing education to support nursing students in identifying potential and actual health care problems, and to follow up on those issues with nursing interventions. However, the linear care plan does not support the nursing student with learning in-depth critical thinking, clinical reasoning, creative thinking, and other ways of thinking. Concept mapping was introduced as a way to support the nursing student to improve upon critical thinking and clinical reasoning and to identify relationships among the patient's health care problems. The present manuscript features the development and evaluation of the Concepto-Plan (C-P), an innovative, holistic care plan that moves away from the linear care plan and improves upon the concept map care plan. The C-P focuses on the relationships among the data clusters and the nursing diagnoses and can be used to enhance the therapeutic relationship between the patient and the nursing student. Quality improvement data supports the effectiveness of the C-P for nursing students to organize and prioritize client-centred care while experiencing meaningful learning, professional self-reflection, clinical reasoning, creative and critical thinking skills and the ability to provide an individualized holistic care plan. As a result, the C-P has been integrated into the curriculum in two different nursing programs in two Canadian provinces.
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    Interventional strategies to improve anatomical knowledge in nursing students
    (2022) Narnaware, Yuwaraj; Neumeier, Melanie
    Human anatomy and physiology are considered a cornerstone of any health-related profession and serve as a pre-requisite for future nursing courses and clinical. A strong knowledge base of these subjects is crucial for medical, allied health, and nursing students to become successful practitioners after graduation. However, there is growing concern that students are not retaining the essential bioscience knowledge from these courses over time. Numerous studies have demonstrated the difficulty students have to retain and apply anatomical knowledge as they progress through their programs of study. Nursing programs worldwide are impacted by reduced face-to-face instructional hours, increased student enrollment, student demographics, fewer dedicated faculty members, minimal or no use of cadaveric dissection, and requirements to move anatomy classes and labs on-line due to pandemics such as COVID-19. These factors have impacted the teaching and learning of biosciences. In this interactive presentation, an author will describe a study that evaluated how much anatomy knowledge nursing students retained throughout the duration of their four-year program. Comparisons and trends by body system and over time will be presented to give a clear understanding of the gaps of knowledge retention between classroom to future nursing courses and clinical. Based on that assessment, he will discuss how interventional strategies were implemented to address those gaps. Attendees will then be encouraged to identify what concepts are essential to their own courses and to outline a project to evaluate whether those concepts are retained over time and what type of learning strategies could impact that retention.
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    Keeping the game in gamification
    (2018) Neumeier, Melanie
    This column poses the question "So how do we use game theory to create meaningful gamified learning?" From the Trends and Issues in Nursing Informatics Column.
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    Moving the discussion online: asynchronous discussion for clinical post-conference in a baccalaureate nursing program
    (2014) Neumeier, Melanie
    Although post-conference at the end of the clinical day is commonly used for nursing students to reflect on nursing practice, personal and contextual factors can create barriers to student engagement in meaningful discussion. Asynchronous online post-conference has been suggested as a viable alternative but little is known about the suitability of that modality. The purpose of this pilot project, therefore, was to examine asynchronous online discussion as a format for clinical post-conference.
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    Never heard that before! Interventional strategies to improve anatomical knowledge retention in nursing students
    (2021) Narnaware, Yuwaraj; Neumeier, Melanie
    Background: Nursing students perceive anatomy & physiology as anxiety provoking & stressful subjects. They experience difficulty to acquire, transfer, retain and confidently apply bioscience knowledge to subsequent years of nursing education. In sufficient bioscience knowledge can result in nursing errors. Nursing students are unable to put bioscience knowledge into practice. Objectives: To evaluate knowledge acquisition in first year & its retention and application in the second year. Identify factors affecting knowledge acquisition, retention, and application. Discuss experiential learning strategies to improve knowledge retention. Design your own project to identify knowledge gaps and appropriate learning and retention strategies.
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    Never heard that before: interventional strategies to improve anatomical knowledge in nursing students
    (2022) Narnaware, Yuwaraj; Neumeier, Melanie
    Bioscience problem? The medical & allied-health students worldwide reported a growing concern over the loss of bioscience knowledge of first-year of their degree program. They lose approx. 50-80% of the first-year anatomical knowledge within two or more years of medical school. Ninety-two (92%) of second year medical students reported that anatomical knowledge was very helpful. Only 14.0% of the final year medical students felt confident in their first-year anatomy knowledge. Knowledge retention studies have not yet been assessed in nursing students. Objectives: assess the anatomical knowledge acquisition in the first-year nursing students and its transfer/loss, retention, and application in the second year. Identify factors impacting knowledge acquisition, retention, and application. Discuss robust interventional strategies to bridge the gap between first-year theory and second-year of nursing.
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    Nursing informatics entry to practice competencies: what does it mean for nursing education and practice?
    (2016) Neumeier, Melanie
    Discussion of tools that support the integration of digital health content into nursing education. From the Trends and Issues in Nursing Informatics Column.
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    Nursing informatics entry to practice competencies: what does it mean for nursing education and practice? Part two
    (2016) Neumeier, Melanie
    Professional development for nurses in practice is discussed. From the Trends and Issues in Nursing Informatics Column.
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    Physiological knowledge retention in second-year nursing students
    (2021) Narnaware, Yuwaraj; Neumeier, Melanie; Chahal, Paul
    Despite anatomy and physiology being foundational courses in medical, allied health and nursing programs, there is growing concern that students are not retaining the essential bioscience knowledge in these courses over time (McVicar et al., 2015). Numerous studies have demonstrated the difficulty of medical, nursing, and allied health care students to retain and apply anatomical knowledge as they progress through their programs of study (Narnaware & Neumeier, 2020b). However, physiological knowledge retention has not been studied as extensively as anatomical knowledge retention in health care disciplines, with very few studies focusing on nursing students ( Aari et al., 2004). Of those studies, most are carried out after graduation ( Aari et al., 2004) or are focused on a single or limited number of organ systems ( Pourshanazari et al., 2013). The present study aims to determine the level of physiological knowledge retained by nursing students in the second year between completing their physiology course in first year nursing and enrollment in the second year pathophysiology course.
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    Second-year nursing students’ retention of gross anatomical knowledge
    (2019) Narnaware, Yuwaraj; Neumeier, Melanie
    Human anatomy and physiology are considered foundational courses in health related disciplines (Young et al., 2016). However, emerging evidence suggests that there is great difficulty not only in transferring fundamental anatomical knowledge to theory/clinical application but also a loss of knowledge over time (Doomernik et al., 2017; Easteal and Perry, 2018). Most of the knowledge transfer, loss and/or retention studies have been carried out in medical, physical therapy and chiropractic students, and this phenomenon has not yet been assessed in nursing students. This study seeks to determine the percent of anatomical knowledge retained by second year nursing students, and to determine which areas of anatomy have the greatest and lowest levels of retention.
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    Second‐year nursing students’ retention of gross anatomical knowledge
    (2020) Narnaware, Yuwaraj; Neumeier, Melanie
    Human anatomy is a foundational course in nursing education, however, there is growing concern that students do not retain enough anatomical knowledge to successfully apply it in clinical settings. The aim of this study was to determine retention level of anatomy knowledge among second‐year nursing students from their first‐year anatomy class, and to determine if there is a difference in level of retention based on organ system. For each system, second‐year students were asked to answer 9 to 11 multiple‐choice questions (MCQs), and the scores from these quizzes were compared to matched test items from their first‐year anatomy examinations. There was a significant decrease in the overall mean score from 83.05 ± 8.34 (±SD) in first year to 54.36 ±12.9 in second year (P = 0.0001). Retention levels were system specific. System‐specific knowledge retention was highest for the gastrointestinal system (89.7%), respiratory system (88.5%), and genitourinary system (83.6%). This was followed by the integumentary system (80.1%), special senses (79.4%), nervous system (74.9%), and musculoskeletal system (69.3%). Retention was lowest for the lymphatic system (64.3%), cranial nerves (58.8%), vascular system (53.9%), and head and neck (42.6%). The present study shows that nursing students’ anatomy knowledge retention was comparatively higher than rates reported by others in medical and allied‐health students. The researchers are now investigating knowledge retention in third‐ and fourth‐year nursing students. Further investigation into why retention is higher for specific systems and intervention strategies to improve knowledge acquisition and retention in nursing students is recommended.
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    The impact of content reinforcement on physiological knowledge retention in nursing students
    (2020) Narnaware, Yuwaraj; Neumeier, Melanie; Gutierrez, J. Claudio; Chahal, Paul
    There is growing concern over the loss of anatomical and physiological knowledge in medical, allied-health & nursing students over time. Numerous studies have demonstrated the difficulty of the students in these disciplines to retain and apply anatomical knowledge as they progress through their programs of study (Narnaware and Neumeier, 2019). However, physiological knowledge retention has not been studied as extensively as anatomical knowledge retention in health care disciplines, with very few studies focusing on nursing students (Aari et al., 2004). Of those studies, most are carried out after graduation (Aari et al., 2004), or are focused on a single or limited number of organ systems (Pourshanazari et al., 2013). We have previously shown that physiology students retained approximately 86.6% of their first-year physiological knowledge over four months (Narnaware et al., 2020). Objectives: To improve the acquisition and retention of physiological knowledge, the present study aims to develop an interventional strategy that includes the repeated assessment of vascular physiology knowledge over an eight-week period.