Technology and Nursing Essay

Technology has revolutionized society, including the practice of nursing. Today, nursing implements technology into their practice requiring both nurse practitioners and IT technicians. From desktop computers to portable laptops, smartphones, and tablets, this advancement allows nurses to work out of the office and on-the-go. This includes improving access to quality health care, an objective of the Healthy People 2020. (The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, 2015) This objective involves many health communication and health IT that can create a positive impact on health and health care team, including the option for nurses to provide and help patients virtually with telehealth. It’s called telenursing.

Nursing informatics and technology are quickly becoming the hot buzz words for nursing in the twenty-first century. While performing research for this specific paper, the observations of how far technology has come from its inception is mind boggling. When looking back to the mid 1990’s every patient had paper charting. Nurses manually charted vital signs, nursing notes, treatments and all orders were manually written in the chart. The patient’s name, insurance information, and billing items were stored electronically. Fast forward twenty plus years and everything nurses do with, for or to a patient is filed electronically. This file today is known as the electronic health record (EHR) (Lavin, Harper, & Barr, 2015). This paper will be delving into the history of nursing informatics and technology, the pros and cons for nurses and what will be the big picture for informatics and technology in nursing today and in the future. Nursing informatics and the technology that has evolved over time are changing and quickly affecting how nurses treat, communicate, plan and document everything that they do for their patients.

In observation, (Fahnestock, McComb, & Deshmukh, 2013) stated "Information technologies are transforming the way healthcare is delivered. Innovations such as computer-based patient records, hospital information systems, computer-based decision support tools, community health information networks and new ways of distributing health information.” (p.3.2). In the sector of delivering healthcare using technology, has made it easier for healthcare professionals to access medical records, digitization of prescriptions and view test results. With the use of high-performance devices being used in the hospital, helps to make the jobs of healthcare professionals a little easier. As well as relieve anxiety from anxious patients that may be awaiting lab results to come back. Therefore, IT devices and services has been and continues to be a tremendous help and game changer for the healthcare system. However, there is still a lot of work to be done to help shape and reform the healthcare

The use of technology is a major part of the growing world. In many ways the advancing technology has become useful to me in my practice. It has allowed me access to a universal patient record, prevented me from medication errors that could have been harmful to the patient, and helped to improve communication among my team members. However, one of the biggest lessons I will take with me, is to never forget basic nursing skills. I have encountered many system and device failures and had to compensate on my own. The use of technology should not ever replace verbal communication, or basic nursing skills that have been taught in school. A culture of technology dependence in healthcare is frightful, and could have severe outcomes for the patients.

The author is offering an insightful view from Registered Nurse perspective of the current trends and improvements in the healthcare industry technology. Judy Murphy has an array of health care technological expertise from being a member of Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics and Fellow Healthcare Information Management System Society. In addition to Judy Murphy work experience as Vice-President of Information Services and CO-Chairing the Alliance for Nursing Informatics.

Many of the hospitals have changed over to everything being electronic. Nurses use computers every day by using an electronic medical record. Nurses can obtain a patient’s past medical history, current and past medications, treatments that were carried out, access to health literature pertaining to a certain assessment or diagnosis, and your assessment of a current patient. The nurse needs to know how to access the right information, how to retrieve and store information to make the correct diagnosis of the patient. The competencies are important for a nurse because so many nurses lack information technology skills, which can limit their ability to access evidence-based information that could otherwise be incorporated into their daily practice (McGonigle pg.

To formulate a solution to the gaps and the issues presented, we first must determine the tendency of healthcare providers with their use of computers. A study that was conducted to determine the relationship of the healthcare provider and the computer hardware device selection yielded great information. According to the study, “The majority (93.1%) of observed nursing tasks were conducted using generic COWs. Most nursing tasks were performed in patients’ rooms (57%) or in the corridors (36%), with a small percentage at a patient’s bedside (5%). Most nursing tasks related to the preparation and administration of drugs. Doctors on ward rounds conducted 57.3% of observed clinical tasks on generic COWs and 35.9% on tablet PCs. On rounds, 56% of doctors’ tasks were performed in the corridors, 29% in patients’ rooms, and 3% at the bedside. Doctors not on a ward round conducted 93.6% of tasks using stationary PCs, most often within the doctors’

I started working in the medical field about 7 years ago the technology has changed dramatically. Many people assume there’s risk of nursing technology provides. They believe there are sometimes medical errors and not having proper direct patient care training. Although I agree nursing technology usage is helpful for nurse’s careers by making direct patient care number one priority. Therefore, I believe nursing technology helps improving direct patient care and reducing medical errors. The technology helps spend more time with patients rather than being focused on other things that can lead to medical errors.

Theoretical perspectives on the use of new technology in nursing. The interaction between nurses and new IT and digitally controlled clinical technology has been theorized from several perspectives.

In response to the 1998 article ?Technology and True Presence in Nursing? published in the Holistic Nursing Practice journal, I agree with the author that technology focuses mainly on the dependent and interdependent aspects of nursing. These roles depend heavily on the scientific medical data about a patient, which is communicated to the nurse through a physician and/or other medical professionals. This often includes ordering required testing, gathering clinical information, and diagnosing the patient. The independent role of the nurse is thus supported through technological advances by allowing the nurse to remain patient focused: spending time with that patient, establishing the important roles of communicator, educator and patient advocate while making independent decisions for that patient.

The use of healthcare information systems technologies does not take the place of the nurse, rather it provides nurses with guidance and support to facilitate the provision of high quality, safe patient center nursing care.

The use of technology makes the nurse administrator's task  much easier when compare to the use of paper. The yearly competencies used to be on paper,  but this year most of them are in the computer. I observed how computer is being used to teach nursing administrators updates on yearly competencies such as anticoagulation administration, procedural sedation, stroke requirement, malignant hyperthermia and infection control. Use of computer is more efficient and it saves time

Sir, can you please step up to the glass, put your palm on the screen and follow the directions from the computer? This is where our future lies…in biometrics, computers, and science. Soon there will be no need to fill out tedious paperwork, to try to remember medications or past medical history. I know it exists in hospitals across America, I have seen it in action many times. Are we as nurses changing with the times? What is nursing informatics? Why is it important to me? How do I rate on the nursing informatics knowledge scale? What is my plan to increase my knowledge base? These questions should be at the forefront of every nurse’s thoughts. The information age has come crashing down on us from every possible angle in our lives, it

Technology play an important role in health care. Many technologies has been proven to improve safety and efficiency of patient care. It helps freeing the nurse of non-value added activities, bring evidence for decision making at the point of care, create a better work environment for the practicing nurse, and enhance nursing workflow (Niemeier & Suchomski, 2011).

The introduction of computer technologies not only dramatically changed the everyday life of humanity, but it has been constantly shaping our present since the invention of the first computing machine and the development of the first informatics technologies. I also believe that the modern technology has revolutionized the way of how the nursing care is delivered today to the clients and continue to shape the nursing process with steady and constant substantial infusions of new materials, techniques and approaches to the everyday nursing practice. For the modern practicing nurse such technologic solutions as