ABSTRACT
Phase I of our Gerontological Reasoning Informatics Project (GRIP) began in the summer of 2002 when all 37 senior undergraduate nursing students in our accelerated BSN nursing program were given PDAs. These students were oriented to use a digitalized geriatric nursing assessment tool embedded into their PDA in a variety of geriatric clinical agencies. This informatics project was developed to make geriatric nursing more technology oriented and focused on seven modules of geriatric assessment: intellect (I), nutrition (N), self-concept (S), physical activity (P), interpersonal functioning (I), restful sleep (R), and elimination (E)--INSPIRE. Through phase II and now phase III, the GRIP Project has become a major collaboration between the College of Nursing & Health Professions and College of Information Science and Technology at Drexel University. The digitalized geriatric nursing health assessment tool has undergone a second round of reliability and validity testing and is now used to conduct a 20 minute comprehensive geriatric health assessment on the PDA, making our undergraduate gerontology course the most high tech clinical course in our nursing curriculum.
