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HITS Happenings

Telehealth was one of four progressive technologies highlighted at the KU School of Nursing's inaugural Health Information Technologies Scholars (HITS) conference on April 3-5, 2008. The highly competitive HITS program brought together over 50 nursing scholars from 27 separate national nursing institutions. The conference offered educational, networking, and mentoring sessions, enabling attendees to refine project ideas they had developed in advance and brought to the conference.

Dr. Janet Grady, prominent national telehealth speaker, provided real-life examples of using telemedicine to train nursing students for the 21st Century, including linking rural nursing classes with teleclinical observation sites hundreds of miles away. The Center for Telemedicine provided the HITS conference attendees with TeleKidcare-in-action, s howing both the provider and school presenter sides of the KU Medical Center Pediatric Department's telemedicine outreach program. School nurses Kathy Archer and Windy Garrett, with their wealth of telehealth and community experience, were (thankfully) available to demonstrate the multiple benefits of telemedicine.

Telehealth web demonstration materials for the HITS conference were developed through the Center for Telemedicine's partnership with the Midwest Alliance for Telehealth & Technology Resources. The Center for Telemedicine also provided live demonstrations and materials at the KU School of Nursing Open House held in conjunction with this innovative, new conference.

The Health Information Technology Scholars (HITS) program strives to stimulate improvements in health care delivery through the integration of technology into academic and clinical practice. The HITS program encompasses telehealth, e-learning, simulation, informatics, and other health care and educational technologies.