The new nurseAdvance site has arrived

It’s been a few years now since I launched nurseAdvance and not much has happened here recently because of my PhD work. Lockdown for Covid-19 has given me a chance to ponder what the future of the site is, so there’s a few changes incoming!

First up: content. I will be focusing articles now on more advanced or technical topics, mostly on technology and healthcare research, maybe also a little on health policy (like workforce planning).

The site began while I was a student nurse and originally intended to simply include anything I found interesting to write about. Today, I think it feels strange to have student textbook guides alongside detailed discussions of technologies that enable e-health.

I also have a responsibility to write more about my experience of doctoral study, as I found it difficult to find stories of what it’s really like while deciding if that was a good opportunity.

Don’t worry, I haven’t lost interest in the student experience and clinical education, that will just become its own project. More on that when it’s ready!

Secondly: design. The site has been updated, still based on Wagtail as the CMS but I’ve enabled the REST API and built a frontend over it using NuxtJS and Vuetify. This carries some site-wide advantages compared to the old design using Django templates, should feel more modern and lets me more easily incorporate interactive content here and there, like data visualisations. By using NuxtJS the site builds for static hosting on AWS S3, which means I no longer have to maintain a Linux server. That takes my hosting costs from over $100 a year to literally pennies, while being faster and more secure.

It’s also a nice technology stack for developing projects within a hospital or nursing school, as deploying static content has fewer technical concerns for novice users (like needing to regularly patch for security). In theory NuxtJS even builds to mobile apps, so a set of clinical guidelines could be available on your hospital intranet while also having a mobile option. Then staff don't need to waste time finding and logging into a free desktop client to access critical information.

So nurseAdvance continues to be a good excuse for me to develop technical communication skills that are in short supply in the nursing workforce, as well as a platform to try and convince everyone else that it’s important! As one of the thousands of visitors I've had over the years, thank you and I hope you’ll stick around for updated and new content, coming soon.