The Impact Of Technology On The Field Of Healthcare Essay

Technology is constantly advancing and improving the quality of life. An idea is presented and it becomes a solution to a problem. Technological advances in the health care field have improved the care given to patients, made diagnoses more precise, decreased surgeries times, and enhanced the medical field in so many ways that it can not be addressed in this one page paper.

Innovations in mobile technology have brought remote healthcare management to the forefront of advanced medical care. The ability to record the cardiac activity of a patient at home has been available for some time. But that method utilized a recording device worn by the patient, which needed to be brought in to a hospital or doctor’s office for a healthcare professional to analyze. Today, real-time monitoring in the patient’s home is a reality.

While advancements in technology have positively impacted the nursing field, it has also created huge concerns with patient privacy and sharing of protected health information leading to detrimental effects to patients and their families. Indeed, technology is changing the face of healthcare with positive innovations to reduce medication errors and documentation errors. However, technology at our fingertips has created immense concerns with sharing of protected health information of patients via social media, email and other means of communication via technology. This paper addresses why I feel the advancement of technology has numerous deficits that need more research and implementation of new laws and policies to safeguard the

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how technology has impacted the health care delivery system. Health care technology is advancing at an increasingly rapid rate in the United States, and globally. Patients and providers are witnessing these changes through the use of telehealth, and telemedicine applications. Telehealth, and telemedicine are often used interchangeably, however there is a difference between the two applications. Telehealth is the use of technology to deliver health care, health information, or health education at a distance (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, n.d.).

Social websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the use of smartphones have quickly integrated themselves into our everyday lifestyle. With the constant advancement of technology, it is no surprise that this trend has affected not only the personal lives of user 's but also their work environment as well. It is important that future healthcare workers understand the many rewards and challenges technology can bring to the workplace.

Medical technology encompasses a wide range of healthcare products and is used to diagnose, monitor, and treat diseases or medical conditions that affect humans. This may included but not limited too, pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and medical equipment. Such technologies are intended to improve the quality of healthcare delivered through earlier diagnosis, less invasive treatment options and reductions in hospital stays and rehabilitation times. Recent advances in medical technology have also focused on cost reduction. Medical technology may include medical devices, information technology, biotech, and healthcare services. The impacts of medical technology may involve social and ethical issues. For example physicians may seek objective information from technology rather than listening to subjective patient reports. A major contributor of healthcare expenditure in America is the advancement of medical technology. According to several studies it is shown that there is a correlation between the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) and money allocated to healthcare. One of the leading theories is that medical technology is growing faster than expected.

In today’s hospital environment, our main focus is placed on technology, medications and treating a diagnosis. Often patients are wheeled from one examination to another with little personal interaction received from their healthcare provider. Patients are hooked up to monitors alarming endlessly due to staff being either unavailable to silence them or not having the compassion to comfort. Technology has become so dominant in hospital settings that we have lost sight of providing the

In Med Surg I, I was assigned to Harford Memorial Hospital. I was really excited to be back in the hospital setting after fourteen years of working in an outpatient surgical center. I previously worked in the Intensive Care unit at Fallston General Hospital for ten years as a critical care tech so I was really looking forward to caring for patients in the hospital setting. I was assigned two patients for which I had to perform a level two assessment on as well as their care. It was a rude awakening for me to discover that the nurses had to wear a phone and that it constantly rang while they were in the patient’s room trying to care for them. Also, all medical information and treatment was now in the computer and you had to scan their identification band and search for information throughout their chart. It appeared to me that some of the nurses never once looked their patient in the eye when they spoke to them, instead they stared at the computer. It made me feel a little uncomfortable the nurses’ main focus seemed to be on the computer and not on the patient lying in the bed. Brown (2011) agrees that individuals are continuously challenged with advancements in technology that can

Health information technology (HIT) involves trading of health information in an electronic format to advance health care, reduce health expenditures, improve work efficiency, decrease medication errors, and make health care more accessible. Maintaining privacy and security of health information is crucial when technology is involved. Health information exchange plays an important role in improving the quality and delivery of health care and cost-effectiveness. “There is very little electronic information sharing among clinicians, hospitals, and other providers, despite considerable investments in health information technology (IT) over the past five years” (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2014, p. 1).

The purpose of this paper is to identify and describe two health information and communication technologies (HICTs) and how they aid nurses in supporting safe, quality care, facilitating continuity of care and care coordination, and partnering with patients and families to increase participation in health care. HICT involves electronic creation, storage, exchange, and analysis of health information to advance delivery of health care. Widespread use of HICT within the healthcare industry can achieve the following goals: improve healthcare quality and safety, reduce costs and health disparities, enhance clinical research, and ensure security of patient health information (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2015). Several examples of HICTs include: electronic medical record systems, electronic prescribing, consumer health applications, and telehealth (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality [AHRQ], 2015). Integration of HICTs in healthcare settings is valuable for all clinicians, but most importantly nurses as they are primary caregivers.

Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) are now exercising a more significant impact on healthcare practices than ever before. The United States healthcare system stands on the brink of a new age of electronic health information technology. The potential for innovation within this new technology represents a great opportunity for the future of medicine. However, in seeking to implement EMRs caution must be exercised to ensure that implementation does not have adverse effects on the personal nature of the patient-physician relationship an important issue that must be addressed in order preserve the integrity of healthcare in the new electronic age.

Information technology has shaped the health care system. The integration of technology into medical practice paved the way to improved documentation. Hospital organizations are now moving towards computer-based documentation (Meißner, & Schnepp, 2014). The change in practice to the computerized system has been the prevailing trend and continued to grow. It is considered as the most significant technological improvement in the past decades ( Yoder-Wise & Kowalski, 2006). Studies show that information technology-based nursing system has promising benefits in improving the quality care provided to patients (Hebda, & Czar, 2013). Technology has helped build the gap between providing care and outcomes. The

According to Hart (as cited in Thede, 2012) Informatics is “a combination of computer science, information science, and nursing science designed to assist in the management and processing of nursing data, information, and knowledge to support the practice of nursing and the delivery of nursing care” (Thede, 2012). There have been many different contributions to healthcare since the evolvement of healthcare informatics. Many of the different contributions as allowed health care providers to provide the optimal care to their patients. There were two AHRQ- funded studies that showed tools provide from the computer generated reports increased preventive care measures (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2002). The study goes on to state that physicians who received reminders ordered more preventive care measures, had an increase in vaccination rates, increased there compliance for colon cancer screening by 50 to 133 %, and overall increased their compliance rate from 10 to 15% overall (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2002). Some downfalls to not using electronic medical records is hand writing that is illegible, unorganized and higher chance of losing records or misplacing records, and duplicate records that are not easily shared among providers (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2002).

Over the course of many centuries, medical technology has developed to a great extent. Studies show that recent equipment has evolved more in the last ten to twenty years than in the past thousand years. Before human time, people learned to treat themselves by just using natural substances. Now-a-days, our hi-tech systems in the medical field have been created for the most effective tools for a high level of patient care. While they advance the tools, it will then allow for quicker diagnosis, less pain, and fewer costs, which in the end will help save more lives. Some people are accepting that modern technology can buy them more time to live while others might find it quite alarming because they fear

In today’s medical field technology plays a big role when it comes to patient care. Technology is huge when it comes to giving the patient the best type of quality care when they are in the hospital. In the old days people would just write it down on a sheet of paper and record it by hand, which caused mistakes. Now with the Electronic Health Record those mistakes are drastically declining. Statistics have shown that using the Electronic Health Record has lowered Nursing mistakes as well as improved patient care. Our society has progressed through the years and has been introduced with the Electronic Health Record which has drastically improved our health care system. The Electronic Health Record provides great communication between