Information Literacy and Leadership

Information Literacy and Leadership Name Institutional Affiliation Information Literacy and Leadership Briefly discuss why, as a nurse leader, you need to be sure of the information you disseminate to patients, their families, and your staff Information integrity is important in any field but even more so in the health sector. This is because the information being passed across in most cases is sensitive information. As a nurse leader, it is important that the information communicated is clear and concise and disseminated in a way that cannot be misunderstood. Patients and their families, in most cases, are very inquisitive about their health and they demand information about the illness they are suffering. In other cases, they even have myths and beliefs which they would require you to respond to. However, before responding to any question, it is important that the nurse leader is very sure about the information. Patients, their families, and even junior nurses tend to believe any information given to them by the nurse leader. If the information happens to be misleading, patients could use the information without knowing that it is not correct. Also, the junior nurses and other staff members could also take the information and use it inappropriately just because the nurse leader said so. Patients and their families tend to believe and trust everything they are told by medical professionals. If they came to find out that this information was falsified, they could no longer have trust in their medical professionals. Furthermore, it is important that the lead nurse information integrity and refrain from talking about or advising on issues he/she is not sure about. It is always better to confirm first than to later realize that the information given to a patient was wrong. Explain how you can determine authoritative sources (those that are reliable and credible) that you retrieve from the Internet. How can you determine if the website is credible? In the current information and technology age, anyone can create a website and post information on the website without any regulations. However, most online sources are not reliable. In most cases, the information given in the websites could be false and misleading. There are several ways through which one can determine the credibility of the source. One of the ways to find out whether a website is credible is by checking the author information. Most credible websites provide author information because they are sure about the content on the website, and the author is certain of himself to put his name behind his work. It is advisable to take a step further and research on the author. Are they qualified enough to write about the particular topic they are talking about? If not, the website could lack credibility. Another indicator of whether a website is credible is the date or currency. A website with a date allows one to determine whether the content is current enough to supply them with the information needed. Most websites that lack date are mostly unreliable. In most educational information, for example, medicine, sources are provided. One should check if the website they retrieve information from has sources or not. If the website article does not have any sources, then the information provided on the website could be just made up. Another way to determine the credibility of an article is to check whether there is bias. An article about medicine should not be biased and no emotion should be detected in the article. One should also find out the purpose of the article; is to inform, or does it persuade the reader to do or buy something? One should also investigate the domain name and the website design to probe the credibility of the website. Accessing the Wilmington University library and based on your focus (Executive or Dual Degree, Educator, or Legal Nurse Consultant) what databases in the library are specific for your use related to your program focus? Given my focus as a legal nurse consultant, I mostly use two databases at the Wilmington University Library. The first database is the ‘Medicine’ database’. It provides authoritative information on medicine, nursing, the healthcare system, and pre-clinical sciences. With this database, I can research in the many journals available and make informed conclusions. The journals available in this database are also up-to-date given that there are always new methods and findings in the field. Another database I make use of in the Wilmington University Library is the ‘Nursing eBooks (R2 Digital Library’. This database provides access to health sciences eBooks from leading publishers in different parts of the world. Given that there are new findings being made in the health sciences in different parts of the world, it is important for me to keep at par with what is happening in the field. With this, I am able to keep up and this way, I can serve patients better and even provide up-to-date information regarding the field whenever required. If the information isn’t available in the Wilmington Library database, what literature retrieval services are available to you through the Wilmington University library and how do you use them? Since not all information is available electronically in the databases, the Wilmington University Library also has books that are also current and can provide me with the information I require when doing my research. To even make things easier, the library has a catalog...