Group 11: Perleta C. Salas and Sofia Maricar E. Gayola
Saturday, March 7, 2020
Microsoft Excel: An excellent tool for nurses towards excellent and quality services
Introduction to Excel
Excel is a spreadsheet program, bundled by Microsoft in their Office suite for Windows and Mac. Excel was coded, but it would be incorrect to call it an invention. The computer spreadsheet was invented by Dan Bricklin in 1978–79. It was originally supported on Apple II, under the program name VisiCalc. Present Day Microsoft Excel Flash forward to present day with the release of Excel 2013, Microsoft Excel is the most familiar, flexible, and widely used application in the world due to its capability to adapt to almost any process. Coupled with the use of other Microsoft Office applications, Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, etc., there is little that cannot be handled by this very powerful combination.
Excel features:
calculation
graphing tools
pivot tables
a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications
Excel User Interface:
Ribbon - Excel Ribbon is the technical term for the row of Tabs above Formula bar. Excel Ribbon is a strip of buttons and icons (refer below image) in Excel Workbook window where Excel commands are located. The buttons and icons of Excel Ribbon are grouped in to different tabs based on the category of their functionalities. Clicking a tab in the tab list changes the Tab of Excel Ribbon.
Ribbon Options - When you click Ribbon Options button, three different options related with the display of Ribbon is shown. Available options in Excel 2019 are "Auto-hide Ribbon", "Show Tabs", "Show Tabs and Commands".
Quick Access Tool Bar -Quick Access Tool Bar (QAT) is located above Excel Ribbon. It is used to hold commonly used commands. Quick Access Tool Bar (QAT)is always visible, regardless of which tab is selected. By default, the Quick Access Tool Bar (QAT) contains the Save, Undo and Redo button. The Quick Access Tool Bar (QAT) is customizable so that we can add commonly used commands there.
Formula bar - Excel Formula bar is located at the top of the Excel Worksheet window. Excel Formula bar has three parts. The left most is the "Cell Name Box", middle one "Formula Bar Buttons" and right one is the contents of the currently selected cell. The data or formula entered in the Active cell will appear in right-most section.
Excel Formula bar components:
Column Letters - Each column in Excel Worksheet is identified using letters from A to XFD. From A to XFD, there are total of 16384 columns available. Below image shows the last Column letter (XFD) of Excel 2019.
Row Numbers - Each Row in Excel Worksheet is identified using numbers from 1 to 1048576. From 1 to 1048576, there are total of 1048576 rows available. The image below shows the last Row number (1048576) of Excel 2019.
Active Cell - The thick border outline around the cell indicates that it is the Active cell inside Excel Worksheet. The Active cell inside Excel Worksheet is used to identify the cell which is currently active. The Active cell is where the focus is on and where the data will be entered. Below image shows the Actice Cell as C5, which is hi-lighted with a thick border.
File Button - File Button can be used to open a menu (called as Excel Backstage View) which contains many options to work with the Excel file. Important options are "New", "Open", "Save", "Save As" and "Print". When you click the File button, a menu (Excel Backstage View) similar to the image below is opened.
Cell Name Box - Cell Name box is where the Active Cell Name is displayed. Refer the image below to understand what is Cell Name.
Tab List : Tab List is where different Ribbons are displayed as Tabs in Excel Ribbon. Different Tabs contain commads with similar functionalities which are grouped together.
Window Controls - Window controls are used to control the main Excel window. Similar to any normal Windows application, three buttons are used for minimizing the window, maximizing / restoring the window, and closing the window.
Zoom Bar - Zoom Bar is used to zoom in or zoom out of Excel worksheet. Percentage of zoom is also shown.
Horizontal scrollbar and Vertical scrollbar - Similar to any normal Windows application, Horizontal scrollbar and Vertical scrollbar can be used to scroll the contents horizontally or vertically.
Application of Excel:
to manage name list of data records
to perform mathematical calculation easily in daily business
inventory management
create forms and consolidate results
analytical tools
corporate budgeting
Excel in the Medical and Nursing Field
Excel is a powerful tool for keeping track of patient appointments, scheduling doctors, and organizing other information, such as contact numbers or insurance data. Many clinics, hospitals and practitioners use Excel for these functions. Anyone seeking a career in medical office administration must take Excel as part of their curriculum. Excel can also be used to keep track of medications, prescriptions and other health information. It can serve as a remarkably useful and flexible program for healthcare professionals.
Three Essential Excel Skills for Healthcare IT
If you are trying to get into Healthcare IT, or any other tech job for that matter; it’s important to develop core technology skills that will carry you through the challenges ahead. An essential core skill is a decent understanding of Excel, which you will use to manage spreadsheets of data items. The data could be lists of patients, medications, departments, users, or just about anything else you can imagine. Here are the three Excel skills for Healthcare IT that represent some of the top tasks that you will likely need to do:
A. Find Duplicate Values In Excel Let’s say you have two lists of patient IDs, and need to know the differences between the lists:
Here is one of the fastest ways to compare values between two columns.
1. Highlight the data on both columns, excluding the header, if you have one:
2. With the Home tab selected, click on Conditional Formatting, then Highlight Cell Rules, then Duplicate Values:
3. Next, you are presented with a box that shows you a color scheme to call out duplicates. You can change the color, but for here, we’ll just leave it. Click OK:
4. Now you are presented with the results. Let’s break down what we have. The items highlighted in red represent numbers that are indeed found in both columns. The items in white indicate the numbers that are only found in their respective columns. For example, 1337961 is found in column A, but not column B. 1432297 is found in column B but not column A:
Here is how you can group the duplicate or unique values together.
1. Highlight one of the columns below the header:
2. Go to the Data tab, then select Sort
3. Select the column to sort by and make sure to check the box to indicate you have headers. Then select the Sort On option of Cell Color:
4. Next, select the Order to be the color listed. Then click OK:
5. The column is now sorted:
B. Excel Data Formatting
When analyzing healthcare related data, you will come across times when you need to reformat or otherwise change the way data is displayed. One common example relates to medical record numbers like the ones in the previous example. Some organizations have a policy to set all MRNs at 10 digits, meaning that we’d need to pad the above values with leading zeros. Here is how we do that.
1. Highlight the column or values you need to work with, then right-click, then select Format Cells:
2. The Format Cells box will show:
3. Next, select Custom and type in exactly 10 zeros. Notice that now your numbers have been padded to fill in any variable lengths to 10 digits:
4. Click OK to see that your MRNs are now padded to 10 digits:
C. Open A Text File in Excel
In Healthcare IT, it’s common to have some kind of data in the form of a text file that needs to be imported into an Excel spreadsheet. Let’s look at this list of patient info in Notepad:
We will need to open it in Excel and place each data item into its own column. This is also called a CSV (comma separated variable) file. 1. In Excel, select File, Open.
2. At the Open File window, select file type of text files in the lower left:
3. Next, open the text file you need to work with. Then you will be presented with the first of several screens that will allow you to separate the items in each row. Sometimes data items are separated by a fixed width; but in this case, the data is separated by a Tab character. Click Next to continue.
4. You are now presented with the next screen where Excel already detected that a Tab separates the items. The vertical black lines between each data item indicate where the columns will be designated in the spreadsheet:
5. Now, click on the Space delimiter to add it to the parsing. Notice that the street name is now divided up further, which will translate to additional columns:
Depending on the situation, you may need to experiment with different parsing characters. If you mess up, you can always start over. For now, I’ll uncheck the Space character and proceed with the next step.
6. Now we have the option to format the text or even skip columns that we don’t want to import:
7. For this example, we decide to not import the Address column:
8. Finally, the data is opened in a spreadsheet that can take advantage of all the features of Excel:
Coronaviruses (CoV) are a large family of viruses that causes illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle-East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-Cov) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV). A novel coronavirus (nCoV) is a new strain that has not been previously identified in humans. Coronaviruses are zoonotic, meaning they are transmitted between animals and people. Detailed investigations found that SARS-CoV was transmitted from civet cats to humans and MERS-CoV from dromedary camels to humas. Several known coronaviruses are circulating in animals that have not yet infected humans.
What are the signs and symptoms of COVID-19 infection?
Patients with confirmed COVID-19 infection have reportedly had mild to severe respiratory illness with symptoms such as fever, cough, and shortness of breath. In more severe cases, infection can cause pneumonia, severe acute respiratory syndrome and sometimes death.
How to prevent coronavirus?
The best way to prevent the spread of this virus is to avoid or limit contact with people who are showing symptoms of the virus and have traveled to China in the past days.The next best thing you can do is practice good hygiene to prevent bacteria and viruses from spreading.
Wash your hands frequently for at least 20 seconds at a time with warm water and soap.
Don't touch your face, eyes, nose, or mouth when your hands are dirty.
Don't go out if you're feeling sick or have any cold or flu symptoms.
Cover your mouth with the inside of your elbow whenever you sneeze or cough. Throw away tissues you use to blow your nose or sneeze right away.
Keep any objects you touch a lot clean. Use disinfectants on objects like phones, computers, utensils, dishware, and door handles.
What Nurses Need To Know
Preparedness, Early Identification, and NotificationDevelop and educate all staff on a preparedness plan that provides infection control procedures and protocols used within your healthcare facility for the early identification, containment, and care of patients with symptoms associated with Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) to prevent spread within your healthcare facility.
Develop inpatient, ambulatory, and home care policies and procedures that are in line with current CDC guidelines for COVID-19
Provide training to all personnel on screening and isolation procedures
Provide updated training and guidelines on the use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), such as the use of gloves, gowns, masks, eye protection, and a face shield
Display clear signage with instructions for the use of PPE
Ensure consistent use of proper hand hygiene, standard precautions, contact precautions, and airborne precautions, along with the proper use of a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)-Approved N-95 respirator or higher
Clearly display signage for patients that lists symptoms and instructions to wear a face mask before entering the healthcare facility if symptoms are present.
Incorporate assessment questions to document a detailed travel history when patients present with fever, cough, or respiratory illness. Consider COVID-19 if the patient traveled to China within the last 14 days.
Identify, in advance, airborne infection isolation rooms (AIIR) or negative pressure rooms, for quarantine and screening
Outline staffing protocols to facilitate care of patients with COVID-19 and to minimize patient-to-patient transmission
Have available for immediate notification of Patient’s Under Investigation (PUI) the infection control personnel at your facility and the local and state health department. Click here for additional Recommendations for Reporting, Testing, and Specimen Collection and the fillable COVID-19 PUI case investigation form
Have masks available for PUI to don before entering the healthcare facility
Once identified, isolate the patient to airborne infection isolation rooms (AIIR) or negative pressure room and keep the door closed. Conduct the assessment in this room.
Healthcare personnel entering the room should use standard precautions, contact precautions, airborne precautions, and eye protection (goggles or a face shield)
Don Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) before entering the room
Have guidelines for the proper use of PPE displayed throughout the healthcare facility
Notify your infection control personnel and the local and state health department of suspected cases
How to Educate Your Patients and Minimize Spread within the CommunityPer the CDC, it is known that coronavirus is part of a large family of viruses that can cause illness in people and animals.1 While the mode(s) of transmission of COVID-19 remain under investigation, the CDC provides the following interim guidance to help prevent COVID-19 from spreading among people in homes and communities4:
Stay home except to get medical care, do not use public transportation or taxis
Call first before visiting your healthcare provider to notify of the need for evaluation for COVID-19. Follow the instructions provided by your healthcare team.
Separate yourself from other people in your home, utilize a separate bathroom
Wear a facemask
Cover your coughs and sneezes
Wash your hands frequently with soap and water for at least 20 seconds
Cases in South Korea soar to 433 due to church and hospital clusters
By Euronews with AFP, AP - last updated 22/02/2020- 20:38
Cases of COVID-19 coronavirus soared in South Korea as the country confirmed 433 on Saturday, sparking fears about greater transmission outside China. At least 17 patients are in critical condition, the country's vice health minister said, while health workers tried to screen thousands of patients. The eight-fold increase in cases was in part linked to a religious organisation primarily in Daegu, South Korea's fourth-largest city, the country's centres for disease control and prevention (KCDC) said. The controversial Shincheonji church closed its 74 churches and affiliated institutions for quarantine. It expressed "deep regret" that many patients contracted the virus in its community. The situation has also opened up the church to more criticism for its controversial beliefs. "Shincheonji followers believe Lee Man-hee [the founder] is immortal and has an eternal life,'' said Ji-il Tark at Busan Presbyterian University in South Korea. He added that they often sit close together in services and must attend services. The church said they were cooperating with the quarantine and denounced other Christian groups' claims as false. Cases at the nearby Cheongdo Daenam hospital in South Korea also skyrocketed. The KCDC warned anyone "who has attended a service at Shincheonji Church or visited Cheongdo Daenam hospital in February" to "stay home and avoid unnecessary outdoor activities". Israelis and Palestinians are asked to quarantine themselves Israeli and Palestinian health authorities asked people who have been in close contact with a group of South Korean tourists recently to quarantine themselves, Saturday. The request came after South Korea informed Israel that nine members of the group who toured Israel and the West Bank for a week this month tested positive for the new virus. The tourists were diagnosed upon returning home. Meanwhile, Israeli media reported that a South Korean airliner that landed at the country's Ben Gurion airport Saturday evening will be sent back to Seoul after 12 Israelis on board are evacuated and quarantined. The airplane was taxied away from the allotted terminal. Israel's Health Ministry said it's investigating whether the Korean tourists had transmitted the virus while in Israel country. The ministry published a list of places the tourists visited, including churches in Jerusalem and other cities, and instructed people who came into close contact with the group to notify the ministry and quarantine themselves for 14 days. A similar warning was issued by the Palestinian health ministry. On Friday, Israel said a passenger who was quarantined on a cruise ship in Japan was diagnosed with the virus after he was flown home with a group of 11 Israelis, making it the first case to be reported inside Israel. The others are in quarantine. Three other Israelis are being treated in Japan after contracting the virus on the cruise ship. There have been no cases recorded in the Palestinian territories. China says the daily case count is decreasing Chinese authorities have said the daily count of new cases has decreased, reporting 397 new ones. Most of the new cases and many of the deaths were in Hubei province where the outbreak began. There have been over 2,000 deaths in mainland China due to COVID-19. China had severely restricted travel and imposed strict quarantine measures to stop the virus from spreading. But a few Chinese provinces began easing restrictions after reporting no new cases in recent days, the Associated Press reported. Iran reports a sixth death from the virus Iranian health authorities reported a sixth death on Saturday. The governor of Markazi province told the official IRNA news agency that tests of a patient who recently died in the central city of Arak were positive for the virus. Earlier on Saturday, health authorities reported a fifth death from the coronavirus and said the fatality was among 10 new confirmed cases in Iran. It was not immediately clear whether the sixth fatality was among those 10. So far, 28 cases have been confirmed in Iran, including the five who died. People are being treated for the virus in at least four different cities, including the capital, Tehran, where some pharmacies had already run out of masks and hand sanitiser. Other cities are Qom, Arak and Rasht. The virus loomed over a nationwide parliamentary election in Iran on Friday. Many voters went to the polls wearing face masks. Health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour made Saturday's announcement for the latest figures on state TV, but did not specify when the fifth death occurred. Two people had died earlier Friday from COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. Authorities reported two deaths previously this week. Jahanpour said that of the 10 newly detected cases, two were in the capital of Tehran and eight were in the city of Qom. That's where the first two elderly patients died on Wednesday. He said the two patients in the capital had visited Qom or had links with the city. Minoo Mohraz, an Iranian health ministry official, had said Friday that the virus "possibly came from Chinese workers who work in Qom and travelled to China." She did not elaborate. A Chinese company has been building a solar power plant in Qom. As a preventive measure, Iran has closed schools in Tehran, Qom, Arak and three other provinces. Also, the city of Tehran closed down all bistros and water fountains in the city's subway stations until further notice. Authorities also suspended popular football matches for 10 days and additional measures include daily cleanings of metro train cars and city buses. Saudi Arabia takes preventive measures Saudi Arabia announced that citizens and residents of the kingdom are not permitted to travel to Iran following the spread of the virus there. Anyone previously in Iran will only be permitted entry to the country after the 14-day incubation period of the virus has passed. The decision, while not specifically mentioning Iranian nationals, directly impacts thousands of Iranians who travel to Mecca and Medina for Islamic pilgrimages, effectively barring them from entry to Saudi Arabia.
The kingdom has already barred its citizens and residents from travel to China.
