Nurses and Technology

Technology is on the rise! Globalization in healthcare is the current trend. Information highway accessibility is a convenience that nurses need to explore and exploit.

For decades now, technology has been a part in the life of the nurses in patient care. Collision of healthcare and technology has created an industry that now drives both the cost and the standard of healthcare. While nurses are utilizing technologies such as intravenous therapy, ventilators, glucometers, chest tubes, telemetry packs and monitors, arterial lines, microchips driven IV pumps and many others, most documentation and communication in many hospitals have remained tied to pen and paper, face-to-face or phone-to-phone encounters.

Computer technology revolutionized patient care. The routine, dull nursing care transformed into a challenging high-technology patient care. Many hospitals accross the nation is adapting computerization in their facility. However, this new technology raised several concerns in the nursing profession. Several questions have been raised, questions such as: Does technology detract from the humanistic side of patient care? Does it diminish quality patient care? Does it minimize the value of the nurse’s skills? Looking into all these concerns led me to several points about the advantages of utilizing the new technology.

In my personal opinion, the use of computers and information systems have helped nurses perform their jobs better and more efficiently. Nurses can readily access patient records or check patient’s medications and laboratory results while at bedside. Technology can also improve job satisfaction, reduce errors, and give nurses more time for direct patient care. Furthermore, technology help nurses take information and turn it into insight to make life-saving decisions at patient’s bedside.

However, many nurses are still cynical with the use of computers especially for nurses who are not computer savvy. Most nurses would think that using computers would drive them to spend more time and effort to complete their documentation. Technology should not get in the way of patient care. It should help nurses perform a better if not the best patient-centered care. It is therefore the role of the hospital administration to choose a system that would allow the nurses to do what they usually do and not to reinvent their job because of the new technology in the facility. The nurse educators must also train the staff about the ins and outs of the new technology to make them comfortable and confident in using the technology.

I believe, with the right attitude, openness to change, integration to IT environment through skills training and support from a competent nurse educators and unit administrators, nurses will have a better chance to learn new technology that will help them deliver holistic care to their patients.

What do you think???