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UMSON Faculty Create Mobile App That Provides Environmental Health Tips

August 29, 2012

Baltimore, Md. – In a world that is placing more importance on how its behavior affects the environment, the University of Maryland School of Nursing (UMSON) is making its own contribution to green practices. Clinical Instructor Anjana Solaiman, MS, RNC, IBCLC; Assistant Professor Robyn Gilden, PhD, RN; former Environmental Health Education Center Program Manager Katie Huffling, MS, RN, CNM; and retired Professor Barbra Sattler, DrPH, RN, FAAN, collaborated to create the Green RN Application available for download through The Apple App Store.

Green RN, which was recently released, is the brainchild of Solaiman, who teaches in UMSON’s program at the Universities at Shady Grove. Solaiman answered a call to action from the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments (ANHE) which supports innovative efforts to expand and deepen the involvement of nurses in environmental health issues related to education, practice, research, and promotion of advocacy activities. The application provides inspirational tips for nursing professionals and students two to three times per week. It educates nurses on environmental health factors that can have a positive effect on themselves and their patients.

“I wanted to create something that would inspire, enable, and educate RN professionals and students about environmental health factors. Additionally, I felt it was important to give the user actionable insights to positively affect their patients and themselves. Green RN can reach people globally to disseminate environmental health knowledge,” Solaiman said. “There has been an explosion of mobile device applications that have the ability to facilitate change. I want to capitalize on that wave.”

This free application provides nurses with quick snippets of useful environment information right at their finger tips. Nurses can stay abreast of topics such as ways to green a nursing practice, how environmental chemicals can impact human health, and more. There are also links embedded within the tips that provide further information on a specific subject matter.

Tips and resources can be accessed at any time once they have been published. In addition, Green RN features an integrated search function and index of previous tips that can be saved to a favorites folder for easy access to the most relevant tips. Currently available for iPhone devices, Green RN allows users to share its tips via email, Facebook, and Twitter. In the future, Green RN is expected to be compatible with other handheld mobile devices such as the Blackberry, Droid, iPad, and more.

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The University of Maryland School of Nursing, founded in 1889, is one of the oldest and largest nursing schools, and is ranked eleventh nationally. Enrolling more than 1,600 students in its baccalaureate, master’s, and doctoral programs, the School develops leaders who shape the profession of nursing and impact the health care environment.