Social Networking Community Available on uCern
Cathy Welsh, MS, RD
Registered dietitians
now have their own social networking community on the Cerner Corporation’s
uCern site. Cerner electronic health record (EHR) software has about 30%–40% of the market, so potentially that means plenty of
opportunities to connect and share.
What is
uCern?
Cerner associates,
clients, and partners use uCern to collaborate and share best practices. The
community at uCern Connect posts topics based on professional role, Cerner
Solution, and special interests. Anyone can ask questions, contribute, and
access information about these specific topics. Spaces contain discussion
forums, blogs, polls, and projects. It also allows bookmarking and sharing via
e-mail or private discussion.
How do I
get started?
If you work
for a facility that uses Cerner as its EHR software vendor, you can just go to www.ucern.com and click “Sign Up” in the upper
right corner of the page. You will need to use your work e-mail address when
registering for the account. You do not need to work for Cerner or even in the
information systems department.
Now that
you have signed up for uCern, follow these four easy steps to get started:
·
Join a group: To get the
most out of uCern, you need to join groups. You will find thousands of groups
within uCern based on professional roles, Cerner Solutions, special interest
(SIGs), or personal interests.
·
Create and
update your profile: Add a picture to your profile and an avatar icon to
help other users easily identify you and your contributions. It is also a great
way to express your interests. You do not need to use a picture of yourself—use
one of your dog, favorite sports team, family, etc).
·
Create a connection: To find
someone in your professional network, enter the person’s name into the Search
Box at the top right. Click on the person’s name to navigate to the
individual’s profile and click “Add as a Connection” on the right hand side of
the page. You can view people in similar roles (based on text and descriptive
tags in their profile) and your team members on the lower right hand side of
your profile.
·
Customize
your personal view: Create your own personal dashboard to keep the most
relevant information right at your fingertips.
RDs have
their own uCern community or space (currently 27 members in this group).
Discussion topics range from enteral documentation, PowerNotes, International
Dietetics & Nutritional Terminology (IDNT) content, nutritional screening,
recommendations for diet orders, and the ever popular “advance diet as
tolerated,” and you can post documents. You also will find an excellent
resource on the Nutrition Care Process, demonstrating how you can pull the IDNT
into your Cerner PowerForms and interactive views.
How do you
create and share information?
You can access
uCern Wiki directly or from uCern Connect. Wiki is a simple, but dynamic way to
create and share information in uCern. Wikis are simple, efficient tools for
managing knowledge and collaborating. The wiki allows the free flow of
information. With wikis, knowledge does not get buried in e-mails or locked
into file systems, hard drives, or servers. Wikis are always online, so users
can access, collaborate, and share content, knowledge, and files anytime,
anywhere.
Wikis are
also very flexible. You can customize them and also connect a wiki to other
applications, databases, and file systems. The wiki lets you collaborate online
with others. It is easy, efficient, and intuitive to use. Every user’s contribution
is seen and heard, and others can comment on it. In this way, wikis improve and
democratize communication. It makes it easy to disseminate information quickly
without bottlenecks. I found wiki very useful when we implemented the new WHO
Growth Charts.
If your
facility uses Cerner, join today. Start learning and sharing!
Reference: uCern help files.