Impact of Technology on Nursing Field

Topic: Health Words: 1459 Pages: 4 Nov 5, 2022

Topic Summary

Nursing practices are essential in any patient’s illness treatment plan. Those practices are impossible without the proper technical equipment. Technological advancement positively influences nursing and health care because it provides valuable tools to alleviate the pressure and responsibility put on the nurses and doctors. Emerging technologies such as electronic health records and radio-frequency identification systems can automatically perform particular tasks allowing nurses to focus on other objectives. Moreover, technologies can increase the accuracy of performing operations and avoid the medication errors caused by the human factor.

Exploring the positive impact of technology advancement on the nursing field is essential for developing society. The current paper focuses on discussing the role of some past, present, and emerging technologies in nursing. The first technology which was implemented in the 21st century is the electronic health record system (Cho et al., 2021). Thanks to this innovation, the nursing field can potentially increase the quality of medical services. Popular nowadays radio-frequency identification system is also considered a helpful tool to relieve nurses from repetitive tasks.

Studying the possible positive implications of innovational virtual reality technology in healthcare is essential for medicine development. First of all, this equipment can be used to provide realistic training for nurses and doctors. Constant educational activities can allow clinicians to develop the quality of the medical services, thereby enhancing the patient’s safety. Moreover, virtual reality practical applications in health care research may open unlimited treatment opportunities. Correctly stated advantages of the technological advancement in nursing can provoke additional sponsorships to the particular projects, enhancing the development of the healthcare practices.

Annotated Bibliography

Domhoff, D, Huter, K., Krick, T., Rothgang, H., Schmidt, A., & Wolf-Ostermann, K. (2019). Digital technology and nursing care: A scoping review on acceptance, effectiveness and efficiency studies of informal and formal care technologies. BMC Health Services Research, 19, 103–108.

The scientific paper is devoted to the literature and medical databases analysis related to the topic of the technologies implementation in nursing. The author of the article highlights the importance of the technologies in medicine in general and in nursing in particular. Additionally, the paper discusses the policy and legislation proposing and limitations of such technologies focusing on the ethical aspects of machine health monitoring.

Chang, C., Chen, C., Hsu, L., Lai, Y., Tseng, K., & Zheng, C. (2017). An intelligent health monitoring system using radio-frequency identification technology. Technological Health Care, 24, 421–431.

The article focuses on the describing and practical analysis of the intelligent health monitoring systems which use radio-frequency identification technology. The author of the paper emphasizes that this system is highly relevant for the elderly and can be installed even in the home environment to help nursing staff control treatment appropriately. In the article, the importance of the intelligent health monitoring system at the hospitals is also discussed. Chang et al. emphasize that nurses will provide more efficient care for many patients when such a technology is used.

Cho, Y., Choi, M., & Kim, M. (2021). The quality of online social relationships factors associated with nurses’ user resistance to change of electronic health record systems. Communications of the ACM BMC Med Inform Decis Mak, 21(1), 1–17.

The author of the article focuses on discussing the vital role of electronic health record systems in nursing. The article is devoted to highlighting the challenges nurses can face while working with this system. Cho et al. consider the special training to overcome nurses’ difficulties and mental barriers while working with health record systems. The positive impact of this technology on the nursing field is also highlighted in the paper.

Clarke, P. (2018). Envisioning a virtual future for nursing. Nursing Science Quarterly, 32(1), 33–34.

The article is devoted to describing the possible implementations of virtual reality (VR) technology in nursing practices. The author believes that VR provides healthcare with a vast amount of treatment opportunities using robotic surgery mechanisms. Moreover, the VR technology can be applied in nurses’ education to allow them to experience and learn in close to actual situations conditions. Clarke emphasizes that this technology may help clinicians find ways of treating terminal illnesses.

Essay

Technological progress has a significant impact on the nursing field and allows medical providers to improve the quality of the services and avoid medication errors. Throughout the years, many technologies were implemented to assist nurses in their wide variety of duties and ensure the development of the healthcare system and patients’ safety. Remarkable technologies that have already been used or are in the planning stage positively impact the healthcare system. Thus, technological changes and improvements contribute to the stable growth of medicine.

There is a widespread belief among nurses that the technologies diminish emotional interactions with patients, which are essential for their treatment process. However, on the contrary, the technology implementation serves as a tool to alleviate the nurses’ and doctors’ duties, thereby providing them with more time for communication. Thanks to various technologies implementation, the total nursing efficiency raised significantly (Domhoff et al., 2020). Moreover, technologies allow the healthcare system to develop treatment strategies, collect and analyze empirical data to explore new treatment approaches. Thus, these results prove that technological development in nursing positively impacts the whole healthcare system.

Various positive technological changes in nursing contributed to higher medical services quality. For example, modern diagnostic tools to perform a more accurate analysis of the patients’ problems also positively influence the nursing and healthcare system. Mentioned technological changes are only a tiny part of the enormous medical progress which requires sufficient governmental sponsoring (Domhoff et al., 2020). As far as the technologies improve healthcare and nursing, it is essential to maintain currency in this field.

The electronic health record system was one of the past technologies successfully implemented in nursing, contributing to the healthcare system’s growth. Even though such a system was proposed in the 90s, the helpful technology was introduced only after 2004 due to the expenses and technical limitations (Cho et al., 2021). Nowadays, electronic health record systems are used in medical organizations worldwide. This technological change allows nurses to make notes and change patients’ medical history when necessary in digital format. Electronic health record systems make the caring medical structure more organized and provide access to the information required to plan the treatment. The nursing staff faces many difficulties working with such equipment and even tends to oppose this technology. However, the scientific research proves that the nurses’ challenges while working with electronic health record systems are usually caused by the lack of technological knowledge (Cho et al., 2021). As far as this technology enhances the quality of the medical services, special training for the nurses to use this equipment without obstacles should be sponsored. Implementing electronic health record systems was a significant step in nursing development.

The emerging technology of the present which has an impact on the nursing field is radio-frequency identification. This technology is devoted to automatical real-time patients’ health monitoring using biosignals (Chang et al., 2017). Nurses can quickly check such parameters as blood pressure, blood sugar, body temperature, and respiration rate thanks to this technology. Moreover, intelligent health monitoring systems which use the radio-frequency also collect the necessary data and provide the report reflecting the recent changes in the patient’s state. In some private clinics, it is even adopted to manage the automatic medicine distribution (Chang et al., 2017). This equipment costs a lot of money and, at this moment, cannot be used at many medical organizations. However, the possibility of the automatical estimation of the life parameters and patients’ health management is a perfect direction to develop. Radio-frequency identification has a positive impact on the nurses’ practices and makes their work easier.

Virtual reality technology (VR) research and its practical appliance in nursing are among the most promising technologies of the future. Scientists believe that there are two main implications of this practice in the healthcare system (Clarke, 2018). The first one is providing virtual training to allow nurses to develop their practical skills in real-life conditions. The second possible implication of VR in health care is using such programs for robotic surgeries, which can decrease the risk of medication errors. Clarke supposes that this innovation will contribute to exploring the new treatment approaches (Clarke, 2018). Thus, even though VR technology usage in nursing is now in a stage of planning when it will be applied, healthcare will experience significant positive changes.

Therefore, technological progress influenced the nursing field significantly. Most of the changes contribute to the stable growth of the medical technologies. The technological advancement of the nursing field requires sufficient governmental investments. Maintaining technological development in the healthcare system will increase the total quality of the medical and nursing services and ensure the implementation of innovative treatment approaches. Thus, thanks to technology, many lives may be saved.

References

Clarke, P. (2018). Envisioning a virtual future for nursing. Nursing Science Quarterly, 32(1), 33–34.