NR 360 CU Information Systems in Healthcare We Can But Dare We Discussion

You are a nurse in the emergency room, working the Friday 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift, and your evening has
been filled with the usual mix of drunken belligerent teens, wailing babies, chronic obstructive
pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations, falls, fractures, and the routine, regular congestive heart
failure (CHF) patients. Your best friend is texting you from the concert that you had to miss tonight
because you were scheduled to work, and you respond to her between care of patients, jealous that she
is there and you are not. “What a jerk to torture me like this!” you think to yourself.
It is now 2 a.m., and the medics radio once again, notifying you of an incoming motor vehicle accident
victim, ETA of 5 minutes. You sigh and opt to use the restroom, rather than getting that much?needed
cup of coffee, and prepare a room for your next patient. The medics roll in and begin to fill you in. The
patient is a 28?year?old male, a passenger on a bus that was involved in a crash, leaving the vehicle
overturned after rolling over an embankment. There were several fatalities among the bus passengers,
and “this victim has remained unconscious, though his vitals are currently” . . . and as you start to focus
on the patient, you take a second look. Can it be? It is! The lead singer, Jerod, from the band “Blue
Lizards,” who you have adored since you first heard his voice! The band had just left the concert that
you had missed last evening when the accident occurred. You quickly text your best friend . . . “Can you
believe?” and she responds with “Yeah, right. PROVE IT.” So you quickly snap a picture with your
smartphone, when alone with the patient, and send it to her. Can’t hurt, right? Celebrities are “public
property,” and that’s a part of their life, right? Just for good measure, you snap a few more pictures of
the unconscious singer in various stages of undress and then a shot of his home address, phone number,
and demographic information from his electronic health record. You sit your phone down on the
bedside table for a minute as you continue your assessment of the patient.
At 7:00 a.m., you drag your tired body home and straight to bed after a long but eventful night.