Why Is Ambulation Needed Post Operative?

Decision Making Frame Work in Nursing Informatics

Nowadays, nursing professionals make decisions everyday in a way that they don't even realize. Some of these professionals don't take full notice on exactly how these decisions are going to affect their duties and the lives of their patients sooner or later. This is the reason why decision making within the nursing setting must be made under a very strict knowledge management framework and environment in order to enable the operation of nurses within the knowledge management process. In this paper I present how I would employ the data, information, knowledge, and wisdom continuum in determining the answers to the question "Why is Ambulation needed post operative?"

The process

Before delving into the details on how I would employ the knowledge management process in answering the question at hand, I must point out that every individual's ability to solve as well as make decisions is limited by the availability of knowledge. The availability of knowledge is therefore a critical component of decisions making process.As Kim et al. (2004) noted, a very valid way of identifying the knowledge requirements is the decision-making oriented approach. A look at the Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom continuum in figure 1 below made me realize that it is designed as well as structured to support the entire decision making process. In this case, it would help me in developing an idea as well as following a sequence of stages in building my decision (McGonigle & Mastrian,2011).

Figure 1: The relationship of data, information, knowledge and wisdom.

How would go around researching the question at hand.

In order to find out the answers to the question at hand- Ambulation needed post operative?" By means of the Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom continuum, I would first have to first figure out the objectives of postoperative ambulation. In other word, I would have to first of all know the goals of the procedure. The next step would be the collection of available information and data and then subsequently analyzing the collected information and data for meaning. In other words, according to the Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom continuum, we must first embark on data collection process. This process would involve the naming of the databases, collection of the data as well as organizing the data into meaningful pieces of information. The work of Bowett (2009) insisted on the need for looking for the most relevant and the most updated data for the purpose of decision making. This would ensure that our decision is based on the most up-to-data information.

The next step would be the collection of the information and then interpreting the information. This information is interpreted to gain knowledge. Now using this knowledge, we interpret the information and integrate in into our understanding. The next step would then be the application of wisdom into the process. This means that we must integrate our passion into the process of decision making.

The relevant databases

Due to the medical nature and question, the following databases are the ones that I would access in my quest for the relevant information and data; CINAHL & MEDLINE Simultaneous Search, CINAHL Plus with Full Text, MEDLINE with Full Text, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, PubMed, Health Sciences: A SAGE Full-Text Collection, Health & Medical Complete, Ovid Nursing Journals Full Text, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, ProQuest Medical Library™, ScienceDirect, EBSCOhost (Academic Search Premier/Complete),JSTOR, Medical Evidence Matters (ProQuest) and Nursing & Allied Health Source (ProQuest).

How I would go around finding the most relevant articles and information.

I would go around finding the most relevant articles and information by using key words such as ambulation, postoperative ambulation, importance of ambulation, importance of post operative ambulation, postoperative management while also limiting my search to just academic journals that are not more than 10 years old.

How I extract the relevant information from the articles

As Shah et al. (2003) noted, most people restrict their process of information extraction to the abstract of academic articles. It is important that other parts of the articles (the body) be accessed in the search for clinically or medically relevant data. I would therefore perform keyword search on the abstract and the entire article.