Omaha System Speakers Bureau

A Speakers Bureau was formed by the Omaha System advisory board as a resource for regional conferences that you can organize in your area during the years when the Omaha System International Conferences are not scheduled (2008, 2110, etc.). The Conference section of this Web site includes details about previous and future biennial International conferences.

Consider planning and hosting a regional conference that meets the Omaha System needs in your area. You can invite a member of the Speakers Bureau to provide one (or two) speeches such as the opening speech, a focused presentation during the day, or a closing speech. During the rest of the conference, your regional colleagues can speak about their experiences and successes, and increase your network of support. People who are new to the Omaha System may attend a regional conference, thus increasing the dissemination of Omaha System information.

Members of the Speakers Bureau have diverse practice, education, research, and automation expertise. All have been involved in the 2005 Omaha System book. To allow you to choose the right speaker for your regional conference, speaker profiles and contact details are listed below. You will need to pay travel expenses and a $250 fee for each Speakers Bureau representative you invite to present. You can negotiate specific details with the speaker(s).

Plan to share information about your conference on the Omaha System Listserv. Listserv members can post messages by sending them to omaha-l@lists.ufl.edu; to join the Listserv, refer to the Listserv section of this Web site.

Speakers Bureau Members

Speaker Profile
Mary Jo is an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She is the former Director of the Institute for Urban Health Partnerships. Mary Jo is the current Co-Chairperson of the Wisconsin State Health Plan Committee, a committee that tracks progress on the state’s priorities and plans the health agenda.

In 1986, faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee College of Nursing incorporated the Omaha System into the data collection system for its Community Nursing Centers. With a team at the College, Mary Jo developed a Web-based version of ACHIS, the “Automated Community Health Information System,” a computerized data collection system for the Centers. This team of nurses participated in the revision of the 2005 Omaha System.

The Web-based ACHIS program includes the data elements required by the National Health Service Corps and tracks focus areas/problems and interventions through the Omaha System as well as ICD9 and CPT codes. Mary Jo has presented data collected through the ACHIS at many conferences and published an article concerning the nursing practice at the Silver Spring Community Nursing Center using this information. Her research interests are in conceptual issues in community health nursing and their application in informatics. She has served on the Omaha System advisory board since its inception.

Speaker Profile
Amy earned a BSN from the University of Toledo, a MSN from the Medical College of Ohio, and a PhD from the University of Florida. Her responsibilities include faculty practice, professional development and continuing education, and instructional and educational technologies; she also coordinates and staffs over 600 clinical education placements per semester. Amy’s unique contributions occur at the crossroads of administration and informatics, with a focus on data based decision-making. She established an informatics infrastructure to support faculty practice, documented the value added component of nurse practitioner care, and mentored clinical faculty in the conduct and dissemination of research. The themes of her articles and book chapters include faculty practice, patient outcomes, and informatics. Her current research examines the use of informatics interventions to enhance health promotion of vulnerable populations.

Amy is a member of the 2005 cohort of the Robert Wood Johnson Executive Nurse Fellows. She is secretary of the Board of the National Nursing Centers Consortium, and chair of AACN’s Practice Leadership Network. She is a fellow on the Sullivan Alliance to Transform America’s Health Professions and is on the editorial board of Nursing Research. She was elected to membership as a Distinguished Practitioner in the National Academies of Practice. She received the Chancellor’s Recognition for Promoting and Supporting Diversity, University of Colorado Emerging Leader award, and alumni awards from the University of Toledo and University of Florida. Amy has served on the Omaha System advisory board since its inception, and is a co-chair of the Omaha System International Conferences.

Speaker Profile
Kathy is an Associate Professor of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing and the Beatrice Renfield Visiting Scholar for the Visiting Nurse Association of New York. While a doctoral student, she conducted the first Omaha System study in an acute care setting. Kathy leads a program of federally and foundation funded research in the use of information technology to improve health care and clinical decision making for older adults. She has published and presented extensively about the use of nursing classification systems and information technology, including the Omaha System, to describe, inform, and influence the care of older adults in acute and home care. Kathy instituted the use of the Omaha System in several research projects and directed the development of a clinical information system for translating research to practice. Advanced practice nurses use the Omaha System in this project to document nursing care. She shares her expertise with students in a graduate level course titled, “Applied Health Care Informatics.”

Kathy is the author of Chapter 5, Use of the Omaha System in Research, in the 2005 book. She presented at the four Omaha System International Conferences, and at numerous national and international meetings. She has served on the Omaha System advisory board since its inception.

Speaker Profile
Chris is the manager of a home health agency service in rural north central Minnesota and public health manager for Hubbard County. She is in charge of the day-to-day operations and the provision of services to the full range of home care and hospice clients. In 1998, Chris implemented the Omaha System along with a point of care documentation system in her agency. Her multidisciplinary staff members use the Omaha System as a basis for planning and delivering care. She provides leadership to increase the accuracy and consistency of her agency’s clinical data, integrate the Omaha System with OASIS, OBQI, and other Medicare-certified agency regulations and survey requirements, and use aggregate data for Medicare reports and JCAHO accreditation.

In addition to her practical expertise in using the Omaha System, Chris served on the Minnesota Home Care Association Board from 1998-2003 and was chairperson of the Board in 2002. She was a speaker at the 2001 Omaha System International Conference, and has served on the advisory board since its inception.

Speaker Profile
Jean is a registered nurse and health visitor (public health nurse) from Wales in the UK. She is currently working as coordinator of the Concordat between bodies inspecting, regulating, and auditing health and social care in Wales. This project aims to improve the quality of services delivered in Wales and to reduce the burden of inspection on front line staff through the sharing of information between inspection bodies.

Jean has used the Omaha System in a research project led by Professor Dame June Clark, University of Wales-Swansea, to measure the effectiveness of health visiting services. The project lasted from 1998-2002 and demonstrated the efficacy of the Omaha System for measuring outcomes of health visitor interventions. Many lessons were learnt during these four years of research, and also questions raised which are now the subject of Jean’s PhD studies.

The PhD thesis is focusing on documentation in health visiting, including the role of intuition in a client encounter and whether the Omaha System can be used as a tool for releasing tacit knowledge. The thesis also focuses on how language influences our thoughts and actions and the nature of truth.

Jean was a presenter at the Omaha System International Conferences held in 2001 and 2005, has given speeches in other countries, and has been a member of the Omaha System advisory board since its inception. She contributed to the 2005 Omaha System book, and served as a reviewer at the request of the publisher.

Speaker Profile
Pam is the Nursing Informatics Consultant for the State of Maine’s Public Health Nursing Program, the first state-wide system to implement the Omaha System. Prior to accepting this position, she was a field public health nurse in rural Maine for 20 years. She has used the Omaha System in practice with maternal, child, adult and population focused clients. In 2002, she shared responsibility for the statewide implementation of the current electronic information system, which integrates the Omaha System into clinical nursing documentation.

Pam now coordinates learning activities and trains new field staff in software and Omaha System use. She is responsible for the day-to-day maintenance of the software application, which is currently used by a total of 75 geographically diverse staff, representing field PHNs, management and clerical users. Pam aggregates ongoing Omaha System and other organizational data to communicate program effectiveness for the benefit of public partners and ongoing program quality assurance.

Pam was a speaker at the Omaha System International Conference held in 2005 and an acknowledged contributor to the 2005 Omaha System book. She is a current member of the Omaha System advisory board. She has served as the chair of the CareFacts Information Systems’ virtual public health users’ group.

Speaker Profile
Vicky has designed and developed strategies and applications to use information technology in nursing and consumer health education. An active user of the Omaha System since 1994, Vicky led a Research and Development effort to develop the first clinical education information system for use in community-based nursing education. Sponsored in part by the Helene Fuld Health Trust, this project was known as the Nightingale Tracker and used the Omaha System as its standardized terminology. Approximately 50 nursing schools throughout the US and New Zealand adopted the Tracker and thus integrated the use of the Omaha System into their curricula.

Vicky has published and presented nationally and internationally about the importance of integrating standardized terminologies, including the Omaha System, into the nursing curricula. She is the author of Chapter 4, Use of the Omaha System in Education, in the 2005 book. She has also designed instructional strategies and educational materials for teaching faculty how to use the Omaha System. Vicky has been a member of the Omaha System advisory board since its inception, is a co-developer of the Web site, and has been a co-chair of the Omaha System International Conference.

Speaker Profile
Leslie is the home care supervisor of the Polk County Home Care program. She is responsible for planning, organizing, directing, and evaluating skilled nurse, therapy, and home health aide-personal care services. She assumes administrative responsibilities in the health officer’s absence.

The Polk County Health Department began using the Omaha System in their home care and public health client records in 1981, one of the first user agencies. When the home care program purchased a computerized clinical information system in 2000, Leslie was responsible for onsite orientation and training. She continues to manage the documentation system. She reviews records weekly to ensure the legal, agency, and nursing standards for care and documentation are met. She orients new employees, and organizes and provides continuing education for her 20 staff members.

Leslie is the past chair of the Wisconsin Home Care Organization Board of Directors, and has served on numerous taskforces and committees that plan and provide educational opportunities throughout her state. She was a speaker at the 2005 and 2007 Omaha System International Conferences and the 2006 National Association for Homecare (NAHC) Annual Meeting. She is a member of the Omaha System advisory board.

Speaker Profile
Karen is a health care consultant. She was employed at the Visiting Nurse Association of Omaha, Omaha, Nebraska from 1978-1993. During those years, she was the principal investigator of the Omaha System research project and author of numerous, related publications. Since 1993, she has offered consultation services to prospective, new, and experienced multidisciplinary Omaha System users in practice and academic settings nationally and globally. Karen is also a consultant to software vendors. She has served as a visiting scholar and speaker in more than 13 other countries.

Karen’s practice includes documentation, information management, outcomes measurement, and dissemination of the Omaha System. She provided testimony for federal meetings and the Institute of Medicine. Karen received the MNRS Informatics Section Distinguished Researcher Award, and alumni awards from Methodist Hospital School of Nursing and the University of Iowa. She conducts workshops, writes for publication, is the author of the 2005 Omaha System book, is a co-developer of the Omaha System Web site, is the chair of the Omaha System advisory board, and has been co-chairing the Omaha System International Conferences since 2001. Karen participated in the translation of a previous Omaha System book into Japanese, and anticipates that the 2005 book will be translated into other languages.

Speaker Profile
Karen is an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota School of Nursing in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her expertise is in public health nursing and nursing informatics, with research related to linking public health nursing interventions and client outcomes using the Omaha System.

Beginning in 1998, she led the planning and implementation of an automated outcomes management program based on the Omaha System at Washington County Department of Public Health and Environment, Stillwater, MN. Karen aggregated and analyzed Omaha System data for the purposes of department program planning and evaluation from 2000 through 2007. Her outcomes analyses and other insights are included in annual reports, grant applications, and other official documents.

Karen is the author of numerous publications and Chapter 3, Use of the Omaha System in Practice, in the 2005 book. As the co-founder and leader of the Minnesota Omaha System Users Groups in 2001, Karen has enjoyed working with public health nurses and managers, educators, software vendors, and home care agencies in the development of innovative Omaha System projects and resources. She has been a member of the Omaha System advisory board since its inception, spoken at numerous national meetings, is a co-developer of the Omaha System Web site, and has been a co-chair of the Omaha System International Conference since 2005.

Speaker Profile
Bonnie is an Assistant Professor in Nursing at the University of Minnesota, School of Nursing. She teaches web-based courses in informatics. Her program of research is in informatics, with an emphasis on analyzing data from a software program for home care, hospice, and public health. The data includes the Omaha System and OASIS data from two vendors.

She facilitated implementation of the Omaha System in CareFacts Information Systems, a computerized information system for home care, hospice, and public health. She has taught the use of the Omaha System as part of the implementation to customers throughout the US. In the past, she conducted research, comparing the Omaha System across agencies to demonstrate the value of it not only for charting, but also for research and quality improvement.

Bonnie was a speaker at the 2001, 2003, and 2007 Omaha System International Conferences and numerous other meetings, has provided federal testimony, and has been a member of the Omaha System advisory board since its inception. She is an active member of AMIA and is currently chairing a leadership history project. She contributed to the 2005 Omaha System book and has published other articles.