After the three Special issues « Women in eHealth » published at the JISfTeH since 2015 with the ISfTeH Working Group on Women (WoW) this new Special issue « Telehealth in Nursing » 2020 prepared by ISfTeH Working Group on Telenursing and WoW provides one Guest Editorial « Nurses and Midwives in eHealth » by Claudia C Bartz, Pirkko Kouri and Veronique Thouvenot, and five articles authored by nurses or midwives as principal authors. They cover the areas of nursing research, the development of a web application in Brazil, attitudes toward information technology in Sri Lanka, predictions of the future of healthcare in Finland, and malnutrition among pregnant women, mothers and babies in the rural amazonian forest. At the end, nine nurses and midwives share their vision and ambitions in the Blog of the Women Observatory for eHealth. Access to the journal of ISfTeH 2020 here
Lisa Darsch has always been drawn to finding innovative solutions to global healthcare challenges. She combines hands-on clinical nursing practice with expertise in international policy, strategy, and healthcare finance.
Lisa is passionate about nurse leadership. Operating at the intersection of education, health and entrepreneurship, she guides global health organizations on strategy, policy, and data-driven quality initiatives. She aims to improve patient outcomes, workforce development and universal healthcare access, working with international health ministries, governments and companies across continents. As an expert in U.S. and international healthcare finance, Lisa also boosts health systems’ effectiveness by innovating and improving financial strategy. Lisa is also eager to empower the next generation of nurses with tech innovation and other education methods.
Some of her current projects include: NED advisor at the International Nurses’ Society on Addiction; Founder at the Global Nurse Consultant’s Alliance; Senior Clinical Advisor at Effy Healthcare Director of Employee Wellness, Healthcare Navigation & Global Experiential Learning Educator at Shenandoah University; and Campaign Advisor to Pam Cipriano, candidate for the International Council of Nurses presidency.
Rafaele Cristine Barcelos dos Santos Luz Ribeiro Enfermeira Especialista em Bancos de Leite Humano e Aleitamento Materno IFF/ Fiocruz
My name is Rafaele, I am a specialist nurse in Human Milk Banks at Instituto Fernandes Figueira / Fiocruz for 2 years.
Nursing is the art of caring for people we don’t know. Always an affinity for this art, and I found in it the opportunity to do good.
During college I was a mother twice, and I went through the suffering of the beginning of the puerperium, especially breastfeeding. I suffered alone because I believed that the pain at that time was normal. However, at the end of college, I visited a milk bank, and I know the magnificent work carried out at the institution, promoting, protecting and supporting breastfeeding. And I discovered that this suffering can be avoided with the support of specialized professionals. I decided then that it was the job I wanted in my life, to support women, thus contributing to the increase in breastfeeding rates.
Brazil has the largest and most complex network of Human Milk Banks, and we currently have the Global Network of Milk Banks. Being part of this team of professionals so engaged in the cause makes me hope that the rates expected by the WHO (World Health Organization) will be reached soon, thus contributing to the reduction of child morbidity and mortality and a healthier puerperium more for women in the world do it.
Claudia Bartz is a nurse in the US, and she accepted to share what convinced her to be a nurse and why? What convinced me? I remember telling my 3rd or 4th grade teacher that I was going to be either a teacher or a nurse but I have no idea where that came from.
Then, between my first and second years at university, I decided that my first year in ‘general studies’ was not very interesting. So I decided to change universities and apply to enter the baccalaureate nursing program as I began my second year.
This was during the Vietnam – US war so the Army was recruiting nurses and paying them while they were in school. I had no money really so the Army Student Nurse Program was a fortunate path for me as I began my third year at university.
From then on, I never wavered in my choice of profession. I have learned so much and met so many people in different environments during the decades since I graduated and I value all of it.
Why be a nurse? First, a successful nurse approaches health and the provision of healthcare in a holistic way. We try to see the whole person/family/community and we try to look beyond the immediate state of things. Second, a successful nurse has a wide variety of opportunities to work toward making a difference.
One can administer a system, manage a care delivery entity, be a researcher, be an educator, be an entrepreneur and so on. I only hope that I can contribute to continuing progress for nursing, health and the provision of healthcare. Claudia is the head of WeMentors at the Women Observatory for eHealth and provides tips for mentoring in eHealth.
Pirkko Kouri is Principal Lecturer at Savonia University of Applied Sciences, Kuopio, Eastern Finland and holds a PhD in Nursing Science. As Vice President of the International Society for Telemedicine and eHealth, she accepted to be interviewed in 2016.
Franka Cadee is a midwife who developped the Twin2win, an innovative & sustainable method for empowering midwives, with a core value of reciprocity. The (t2t) project is designed to provide a support network that empowers and strengthens midwives, individually and organizationally. It is a program that builds the foundation necessary for strong and effective midwife organizations, and hence for accessible and quality midwifery care.
Since 2015, nurses and midwives have published seven scientific guest editorials and articles at the Journal of the International Society for Telemedicine and eHealth (JISfTeH). For the WHO 2020 Year of Nurses and Midwives, we are happy and proud to share them again !
Women as Beneficiaries of Telemedicine and eHealth Services in Peru: Access and Use of ICT for Health Among Female Healthcare Workers in the Area of ePrevention Lady Murrugarra (Nurse) and all https://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/JISfTeH/article/view/111
Rob Fraser is a registered nurse in Canada working in Toronto.He was interviewed in 2015 on Nursing Today, How is the “digital” impacting the nursing profession? What are the values of online initiatives like Connecting Nurses? What does a career in nursing look like today? What is the future of nursing? We are pleased to re-publish his interview within the WHO Year of Nurses and Midwives.
” I choose to be a Nurse Midwife because it’s one profession that can continue to spark my innovative mind to deal with many aspects of patient care especially among women and children”
Chinomso Ibe is a Nurse/Midwife founder of Traffina Foundation for Community Health (TFCH) in Nigeria and a Fellow of Maternal health Program with the Maternal Health Task Force at Harvard School of public Health and Institute of International Education USA. She reports on recent activities :
Since 2014, Connecting Nurses, Sanofi and the Millennia2025 Foundation WeObservatory have recorgnised Traffina Foundation for Community Health (TFCH) efforts on Maternal and Child Health, and we have continued to make great impacts in our rural communities supporting our pregnant women and babies survive during childbirth with the production and distribution of our Mom and Newborn Delivery Kits. We keep improving every day on our package and can’t wait to hit a Million distribution !
In 2019, we have started a Facebook live « Mama & Pikin Matter” a live series on Maternal and Child Health to engage our online communities and build there knowledge on how to reduce preventable pregnancy and child birth complications and death. Different topics on Maternal health are discussed every Sunday, having our audience ask questions and share real life childbirth scenarios. We were able to educate more than 20,000 community members. Dr Uche Anyanwagu and I anchored this program. We took a break and will continue with it soon.
We have also continued our rural community Safe Motherhood program’s and Ante-natal care programs teaching pregnant women and families in different local languages on how to maintain a healthy lifestyle during pregnancy, Childbirth and beyond.
Our work has gone viral inspiring so many other young people who have become and extension of our work in there rural communities. We have more volunteers across Nigerian rural communities who are truly a blessing to us , with full dedication to help reduce the Maternal mortality and morbidity rate in our country. We are really building Maternal health young champions, which is a continuation of the impact the Maternal health Task Force fellowship made in me.
Right now in the Covid 19 pandemic, we are providing palliative support to pregnant women and breastfeeding mother’s across 5 states in Nigeria. Knowing the impact of lockdown on pregnant women, breastfeeding mother’s and there babies, we have so far distributed food to 200 women and there families, through our donors who remained anonymous.
We have new patners too Henderson Hill’s Baptist Church Edmond US who are supporting our Mom and Newborn Delivery Kits, we will share pictures when we complete there project. Also we have individuals who are supporting the distribution of the kits to there communties and we are thankful for that.
As the pandemic affected the rural communities much , more women are giving birth at home more , but with our intervention we are providing as many birth supplies as possible to our women and also at the health centers.
I am also working as a Frontline at this point and using this opportunity to say a big thank you to my amazing team for all there hard work.
We are looking forward to more support to provide more Birth kits to our women as both the fear of being infected by the virus and no availability of Birth supplies have left them to give birth at home more.
We are not giving up, we will continue to save lives !
COVID-19 has stimulated the creativity of our partners, projects and team, with innovative digital solutions to support the information of health professionals and citizens around the world :http://www.m2025-weobservatory.org/covid-19.html
The new webapp EpidemiXs Coronavirus developped by Universal Doctor is available in Spanish and French
Weekly weblives provide the most recent updates in Spanish and soon in French : https://academy.ikoustudio.com/live/.
They are also in hospitals providing healthcare to patients and we applause them everyday at 20:00 !
Lady Murrugarra is a Nurse Technician in Peru leading the ePrevencion program in San
Benito of Cajamarca to ensure that « Health for All » is a reality through the use of new
technologies.
We are proud to have her as vice-chair of the Global Network of Women in Telemedicine
(WeTelemed) to make telemedicine accessible to all in Peru and around the world ! En Español
Michael Dino, Nurse Educator, Researcher and Innovator, Director for Research
Development and Innovation Center at the Our Lady of Fatima University in the Philippines.
Since the 2013 Connecting Nurses Award,
Michael is featured at the Women Observatory for eHealth of the Foundation Millennia2025 as a key leader of its innovative projects on telehealth and elderly. Already presented in our Blog, he wants to « move towards a borderless society where global citizenship (caring for the world rather than caring only on your own) is becoming more prominent, we might be experiencing similar problems and challenges that require collaborative approach ».
Michael is working on several projects related to Nursing in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
These include humanoid robots research for healthy seniors (in partnership with Tokushima
University), VR and AR. Read more here !
Nurses and Midwives are at the top of the scene in 2020, with the World Health Organization International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife.
Since 2014, the Women Observatory for eHealth has selected innovative projects developed by Nurses and Midwives around the world. With new technologies, Nurses and Midwives connect to their patients with increased efficiency and quality of care.
Stay connected to the news of the Blog to know more details of their projects in the coming weeks!
New theme issue on Nurses and Midwives in Digital Health for the JISfTeH in 2020
To the chairs and members of the ISfTeH Working Groups To the members of ISfTeH,
We have an opportunity to prepare a themed edition of the Journal of the International Society for Telemedicine and eHealth (JISfTeH). The ISfTeH Working Group of Women WoW) has prepared two of these special issues of the journal in 2015 and 2017, each including 4 to 7 papers, and their most recent one will be available shortly.
The Journal is only available online and the editors are working diligently to establish its place among credible and referenced journals.
Our themed issue would be about telehealth nursing, of course. The editors are very determined to have papers that reflect “science” by which they mean well-done research with intent to produce substantive findings that will contribute to the evidence that drives health care delivery.
Next year, 2020, is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale. We are proposing to you and to the journal editors that we put together 4 to 6 publishable research papers in a Special Telehealth Nursing Edition of JISfTeH that would be available early in 2020 (January or February). The papers would all reflect some aspect of telehealth/telenursing. To begin this process, we are asking all of you to consider submitting an abstract that represents the essence of your publishable research paper. If you are hesitant to reveal all of your research work and findings in JISfTeH, you could consider using a part of your work for this paper. The abstract and paper should be in the traditional research format: introduction/problem addressed; research purpose, research question(s)/hypotheses, sample, setting, data collection methods, data analysis methods, results/findings, discussion, conclusions and recommendations.
All articles submitted must be authored by nurses or midwives, as principal author.
The language will be English.
Abstracts are accepted until 15 September 2019 to claudiabartz388[at]gmail.com or veronique.thouvenot[at]gmail.com
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