How Technology has Affected Nurses - Research Paper Example

? How technology has affected nurses? How technology has affected nurses? The influence of technology can be seen everywhere in human life at present. Technology helped human kind to accomplish complicated tasks with lot of ease. Moreover it helped people to raise the standard of living and become civilized in all the aspects of life. The influence of computers and internet on medical science needs no explanations now. Medical science or healthcare is one area in which technology helped us immensely. Many of the untreatable chronic diseases in the past are treatable at present because of the growth in medical science. In short, all the aspects of modern day healthcare service are controlled by internet related technologies. Nursing is one profession in which the influence of technology can be witnessed clearly. New technologies have the potential to improve the environment for nurses by helping them devote more of their time and expertise to caring for patients, rather than tracking down equipment, managing supplies, or locating clinicians and staff. Advances include wireless communications, real-time location systems, delivery robots, workflow management systems, wireless patient monitoring, electronic medication administration with bar coding, electronic clinical documentation with clinical decision support, and interactive patient systems (Turisco & Rhoads, 2008, p.2). Clinical information systems, electronic health records, drug retrieval and delivery systems, personal digital assistants, medical devices etc are some areas in which technology helps nursing profession in one way or another. Charting and documentation are other areas in which technology helps nurses immensely. This paper analyses the influence of technology on nursing profession in general and its impacts on Charting and documentation in particular. Influence of technology on nursing profession Impatient care is one area in which technology helps nursing professionals. It should be noted that impatient care is provided by a group of support staffs including nurses that meets rarely in person. For example, nurses are working in shifts and therefore it is difficult for a nurse in the previous shift to give all the feedbacks about a particular patient directly to the nurse working in the present or future shifts. So she will feed all the data about a particular patient in the computers so that others can use this data and respond properly. Impatient care is provided by a team of support staff that rarely meets as a group but is in constant communication. Each team member is dealing with multiple patients and care management tasks with many information transfers and patient hand offs that must be reliable and coordinated if care is to be effective safe and timely(Turisco & Rhoads, 2008, p.3) According to Rantz et al (2005), “Technology has the potential to help address common problems encountered by older adults related to functional decline. Collaboration between Nursing, Computer Engineering, and Health Informatics is likely on a path to improve the quality of life of seniors” (Rantz et al., 2005, p.40). Elderly healthcare is a big problem everywhere in the world. It should be noted that many of the old people may lose their functionality partially or fully during their end of life situations. Nurses may face lot of problems while managing such patients. Better technologies can help nurses immensely in dealing with such cases. Lots of new technologies are currently in place to assist nurses in their profession. Distant care is one area in which technology helps nursing profession immensely. For example, it is possible for the nurses to use home dialysis equipment to change the blood of the patients in their home itself. Better communication technologies with the help of internet enhance the two communications between the patients and the nurses. For example telecare technology is currently used extensively in America to provide care to the needy people even from a distant place. “Technology has greatly influenced the evolution of oncology nursing, particularly concerning treatment (chemotherapy, radiation therapy, biotherapy, marrow and blood transplantation), access devices, and genetic and information technologies” (Loescher, 2000). The influence of technology on nursing care can be visible not only in the cases of patients with chronic diseases, but also in the case of patients with minor diseases like fever. For example, earlier nurses used glass thermometers for recording the body temperatures of patients. Nowadays instead of glass thermometers, digital thermometers are available so that nurses may get more accurate data with respect to the body temperatures of patients. “Technology introduced the stick & peel skin thermometers now used in all general anesthetic cases per policy & procedures & can detect rapid rise in patient temperatures as related to Malignant Hyperpyrexia Syndrome(May, 2008). Technology helped nurses to assess the conditions of the patients more accurately than even before. In fact the application of technology has revolutionized the patient care. It should not be forgotten that in the past, nurses used their senses predominantly for assessing the conditions of their patients. Sight, touch, smell, and hearing were the methods used by the nurses to analyse the physical conditions of the patient a couple of decades before. Over time, the nurses’ unaided senses were replaced with technology designed to detect physical changes in patient conditions. Consider the case of pulse oxymetry. Before its widespread use, nurses relied on subtle changes in mental status and skin color to detect early changes in oxygen saturation, and they used arterial blood gasses to confirm their suspicions. Now pulse oxymetry allows nurses to identify decreased oxygenation before clinical symptoms appear, and thus more promptly diagnose and treat underlying causes (Cope et al., n.d.) Influence of technology on charting and documentation With the system in place: Nurses don't have to find a doctor to get a patient's chart; Charts are easier to read, minimizing potential errors; Lab results are available in real time and Various departments communicate better. "Because of the time that is saved by using this system, it gives the nurses more time for more personalized care. Bar-code scanning, Bickford notes, can serve as part of a check-and-balance system for catching errors. The same goes for automated medication systems, which may be designed more for the convenience of the pharmacy than for use during nurses' daily duties (Hoffman, 2012). Electronic patient records help nurses to avoid paper works and file keeping. Earlier it was extremely difficult for the nurses to write all the information regarding the patients on papers and keeps it in paper files. It was extremely difficult for them to locate these patient files when the physicians ask for it. The entry of electronic patient record helped nurses immensely in charting and documentation of the patient data. It is easy for them to access electronic patient records instantly any time when they require it. The entry of tablets and palm tops help nurses tremendously in maintaining patient records. It should be noted that nurses used laptops earlier to store patient data. One of the major drawbacks of laptops in recording patient data is its higher weight. The entry of tablets and palmtops helped the nurses to carry lightweight electronic equipment all the time in their pockets so that they can record patient data any time. Investigators at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Canada will be publishing their results of a study-using Palm computing technology. The goal of the study was to implement this new technology in an ICU setting and study its impact on efficiency. Participants included 24 medical staff, medical trainees, pharmacists, respiratory therapists, researchers and nurse educators. Using regular group focus meetings and feedback on advantages and disadvantages, their overall findings were positive. The study investigators, Stephen Lapinsky, MD and Tom Stewart, MD, concluded that handheld technology could revolutionize patient data management as well as access to medical reference materials. Unfortunately this study only included nurse educators, not staff nurses, who “man” the ICU’s 24 hours a day providing direct patient care. Future studies need to look at the use of this technology within a nursing environment, by nurse users. The implications for use by nursing are tremendous and as yet, unrecognized. Cost of these tools range anywhere from $150 to $499 (Nurses & Technology, 2000). New technologies helped nurses to document all the patient data in timely and less redundant manner. Earlier, nurses took notes while visiting patients and later they transformed these brief notes into detailed descriptions. It was difficult for the nurses to note down detailed reports about the patient conditions since they have to attend large number of patients at a time. In short, documentation of patient data was a major problem from nurses in the past. These difficulties are overcome by the introduction of new computer and internet oriented technologies. Documentation and charting caused big challenges to the nurses in the past. Sometimes they faced unexpected challenges also. For example, it is quite possible that nurses can misplace the information while writing patient data on paper records. In other words, nurses may mistakenly write the details of patient A under the details of patient B since they are doing the documentation works later. Nurses in the past spend a lot of time recording their observations and other patient data on paper files. On the other hand electronic documentation methods help them to record patient data instantly so that the chances of wrong entries are minimized. Nursing and hospital information systems are promoted as benign, efficient software that can save time, repetitive charting, and make the nurses' documentation easily available to physicians, other nurses, and the entire interdisciplinary team at the click of a button. “Studies estimate that nurses spend as little as 15 percent of their time on direct patient care. As much as half goes to documentation. One welcome outcome expected of the many IT initiatives under way is revitalization and redefinition of the role of nurses and the nursing practice. Clinical documentation is an area where IT can have a major influence. As they help coordinate all the multifaceted activities related to patients, nurses must ensure that every aspect of diagnosis and care is carefully documented (Kaminski, 2011) Conclusions Technology has greatly enhanced patient care in all respects. Some of the untreatable chronic diseases in the past are under the control at present because of the growth of technology in medical science. Nurses are one of the major beneficiaries of the intrusion of technology into healthcare. Modern medical equipment helped nurses immensely while recording patient data. It is easy for the nurses to record the patient data electronically nowadays. They can avoid or minimise the chances of errors while using modern technologies for documentation and charting of patient data. Moreover, instant access of patient data is made possible with the introduction of modern technologies in nursing profession.   References Cope, G.P., Nelson, A.L. & Patterson, E.S. (n.d.). Chapter 50 Patient Care Technology and Safety. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK2686/ Hoffman, A. (2012). Technology in nursing. Retrieved from http://career-advice.monster.com/in-the-office/workplace-issues/technology-in-nursing/article.aspx Kaminski, J. (2011). A revealing nursing informatics. Retrieved from http://www.nursing-informatics.com/revealing/utility.html Loescher L.J. (2000). The influence of technology on cancer nursing. Semin Oncol Nurs. 2000 Feb;16 (1):3-11. May, S. (2008). Technology's Impact on Critical Care Nursing. Retrieved from http://allnurses.com/general-nursing-articles/technologys-impact-critical-302362.html Nurses & Technology, (2000). Retrieved from http://www.pdacortex.com/nurses_technology.htm Rantz J., Marek, K.D., Aud, M., Tyrer, H.W., Skubic, M., Demiris, G. & Hassam, A. (2005). Nursing Outlook. Volume 53, Issue 1 , Pages 40-45, January 2005 Turisco, F & Rhoads, J. (2008) Equipped for efficiency. California health care foundation, December 2008. Retrieved from http://www.chcf.org/~/media/MEDIA%20LIBRARY%20Files/PDF/E/PDF%20EquippedForEfficiency.pdf Read More