Going the Extra Mile with Karolyn Davis

Our customers are always going the extra mile for their residents, creating fun activities, planning events, or advancing their knowledge to ensure their facility is running smoothly. Recently, we spoke with our customer, Karolyn Davis who is the Director of Clinical Informatics at Quality Life Services about her role managing the PointClickCare software for her company and how she is continuing to advance her skills and knowledge to better serve the residents.

But first, Nursing

Like many of our customers, Karolyn is a trained nurse. After receiving her Bachelor of Nursing from Roberts Wesleyan College in 1996, she began working in long-term care. “I did work in the acute care setting for a couple of years as well, to hone my skills, but since then I’ve spent the majority of my career in long-term care.”

Then, in 2013 Karolyn decided to embark upon a new path to further her skill set and put her knowledge to use differently. “After many years in nursing, I took a position in the informatics department for Quality Life Services. It was a change for me, but it also opened up a new field of knowledge and a new way I could help to serve our residents. In 2015, I became the Director of the Informatics department and I’ve been here ever since.”

What is Informatics?

For those who may not be familiar with informatics, we asked Karolyn to give us her description of the role. “Nursing Informatics integrates nursing science, computer science, and information science to manage and communicate data, information, knowledge, and wisdom in nursing practice. Essentially it is the merging of technology with nursing practice to facilitate better outcomes for the residents in our care.”

While Karolyn trained to be a nurse and worked in the field for many years, once she learned about the informatics role, she knew it was where she was meant to be. “When a position in the informatics department became available, I knew right away that this is where I could make a difference. With my skill set in nursing, and interest in technology, it was a natural fit for me.”

A PointClickCare expert

Quality Life Services is a family-owned long-term care company and since its conception, it has grown quite a bit. “We have branched out and we now have our pharmacy, home health and hospice, and recently brought therapy services in-house as well. As our services expand, so do our points of contact and we need to ensure our clinicians and physicians are connected and able to provide services consistently across all divisions. To do that, we use PointClickCare.” 

Quality Life Services has 10 skilled nursing facilities and seven personal care settings. Karolyn manages the use of the software and the integrations that are necessary for each particular setting. When we asked her what a typical day is like for her she said, “one of the best things about my role is that every day is different. Each day is a lot of fielding questions and concerns and helping others to find the best possible solution.” Karolyn says it’s a lot like being a project manager and running a support desk at the same time. “I am involved in a lot of the projects we have in place to move things forward or enhance our programs and every time something chances, I need to make sure that not only are those current policies and procedures updates, but that we update it in the training plans as well.”

Being a project manager

Karolyn had a desire to organize her department better and in looking for ways to do that, she took it upon herself to get trained in project management. “When you are running multiple projects on multiple timelines, there’s a lot of material to keep track of and changes to be managed at the same time. As the Director of Clinical Informatics, it’s my job to ensure no balls are dropped so I wanted to find a way to keep track of everything. It started with a search for a software program that could manage all my tasks and that grew into looking into project management certification because of all the tools provided. I appreciate being able to participate in that course and obtain my certification because I was able to use the things I learned and apply them it to my role right away.”

But Karolyn isn’t stopping there! She’s going the extra mile again and now she’s working on her Nursing Informatics Board Certification as well. “The board certification is an extensive education on the standards of practice in this field. The more I learn, the more I can apply to the work that I do and the more I can able to help our facilities better care for the residents.”

Thanks for always going the extra mile, Karolyn!