Embracing Technological Advancement In Nursing

All around us there is a blossoming union, which emanates from a deep embrace; a partnership of key forces, giving rise to a seed called new possibilities.

These key forces are the thirst for knowledge, human creativity, and the compassion of that heart seeking to relieve the sick of pain and restore him to health.

Technology has come, and is still on its way; because all we've seen is but a tip of the iceberg. It has come and it has come to stay.

I like to think of Technology as the field of study where scientific knowledge is applied to create solutions to real or perceived human problems.

Nursing is a care centered branch of health care. It truly is the care in health care.

Virginia Anderson defined nursing as, "Assisting the individual, sick or well..."

Nursing encompasses autonomous and collaborative "care" of individuals of all ages, families, groups and communities, sick or well and in all settings. Nursing includes the promotion of health, prevention of illness, and the "care" of ill, disabled and dying people. (International Council of Nurses - ICN, 2002)

The word care resounds all throughout nursing, and to truly care, it must be from the heart.

New possibilities in patient care wait on the union of Technology and Nursing, for they are embodiments of those key factors mentioned.

Working in the outpatient department of my hospital, one of the things we had to do was to check the vital signs of the patients, and we could have a lot of patients on some days. Due to technological advancement applied in health care we have pulse oximeters, infrared thermometers and other devices which make it possible to measure the patients' vital signs under a minute, reducing stress and allowing us to attend to more patients in limited time. Before these advances in technology was available, and before it's use in nursing, this would have taken a lot more time, and would have been more stressful.

So, the marriage of Nursing and Technology is real, it's here and it's already changing the way we work and interact with patients.

Wearable devices are also available for critically ill patients which can measure their heart rates, blood pressure and other vital statistics wherever they are, record it and send it to their family and healthcare provider.

Here are some things to note about the entrance of technology and its use in nursing;

- saves time: it's use helps the nurses get work done faster. The nurse is able to attend to more patients in less time and its impact is notable in places with low nurse to patient ratio.

- quick intervention: technology allows us to get results quickly allowing early intervention into patient's condition.

- reduced stress: when using technological devices the work of the nurse gets easier and less stressful, and with each new advancement in technology, it is made more so. This is also very important in places with a low nurse-patient ratio.

- elimination of human error: during the days when the manual devices reigned, errors in measurements results sometimes occured due to errors of human perception like visual impairmebt, stress of the health care professional could also lead to errors of judgement. The use of technologic devices in nursing practice allows nurses to get more accurate and reliable results of measurement as the devices used don't get tired like humans and if they are faulty just have to be changed.

- development of better diagnosis: when there are quicker measurements and accurate results, it provides a better understanding of the patient's conditions thereby allowing better nursing & medical diagnosis to be made, and better treatment plan to be developed.

- better management, storage and retrieval of patients' information: information sometimes gets lost when stored in written form due to mechanical/chemical damage to patient's folder, loss of all or part of folder, difficulty in reading old documents and bad handwriting. Thai challenge is being eliminated as information is being stored digitally and can be retrieved in exact same way after many years, there are no challenges of reading someone's bad handwriting because it is typed into the computer.

- it encourages nurses to be more tech. savvy and encourages life long learning as technology is a fast evolving field. 

- it improves research: it is easier to locate specific data, organise and analyse information that is stored digitally than that which is written. A large amount of information is accessible to the nurse researcher in the central patient database and the nurse makes use of available software to locate specific information/data points from the database making research and analysis easier

As with most things, these advancements come with their own disadvantages, and not everyone perceives these advancements as a welcome development.

- some of the older generation of nurses have problems learning and adapting to the use of technology in the workspace. The saying however remains true, that, "we must learn, unlearn and relearn" in order to keep growing. For the advancements of the profession, nurses need to learn how to use technology in delivering care.

- some of the older generation might also believe that the use of technology makes the younger generation of nurses lazy, less skilled and less intelligent believing that its being easier means it is less thorough and the "robots" are doing all the work; this also is not necessarily true.

- faulty devices: sometimes technological devices become faulty and may give wrong results, because of the level of dependence and trust in these devices, it might go unnoticed for a long while leading to wrong diagnosis and wrong management of patients. This might be due to a bad battery or some other problems, there is therefore a need to service these devices constantly if they can be serviced. Nurses should also occasionally try to cross check the measurements from these devices using other devices to ensure they are still accurately working.

An example is a pulse oximeter which kept giving wrong readings of both pulse and oxygen saturation, and we had to change it and use another one.

- overdependence on technological devices: Nurses undergo training in which they gain knowledge before they are certified to work as Registered Nurses, RN. Knowledge, intuition and values gained during training and by experience should not be abandoned when assessing patients, as the true state of the patients health may not be completely revealed in the test results gotten from the devices. The ability and skill of the nurse to observe patients personally should not be set aside.

Any such actions constitute overdependence on the technological devices, is not in line with providing total care and will likely not result in the best outcome for the patients.

We, the nurses, must understand that the devices no matter how advanced are not the care givers, we are the care givers, we are to "use" these technological devices in providing care, with an emphasis on the word "use". We remain in charge of the patients' care, not the "robots", so we must maintain our values, use our intuition, knowledge, skill along with the results/aid from the technological devices in managing the patients.

- in the case of over dependence on technology, the nurse might develop laziness, both physically and mentally. The nurse, if not careful, may allow critical thinking and problem solving skills to deteriorate. It's always important for the nurse to remember that there might be an emergency situation in a place where these technological advancements are not available, at such a time, knowledge and personal ability will still be needed to manage the emergency situation and provide care.

- possible impact on the nursing labour market: technology in nursing and health care is still a growing field, it keeps evolving, and there is a possibility that as technology advances, some basic tasks of nurses might be independently carried out by "robots", this might reduce the amount of manpower needed in the healthcare settings, negatively impacting the labour market.

Technology in nursing is still a growing field, it evolves everyday, and I believe it is worth investing in. There are still a lot of possibilities that are yet to be achieved through the marriage of technology and nursing, even beyond what we have thought, I believe as time goes on they will unfold, the onus is therefore on all in the nursing to be at the ready to take advantage of the benefits it brings and not to be caught unaware by any of its disadvantages.

I Hail the Nurses.

Nurses are great

Nurses are caring

And epitome of humanity in service

We are specially ordained for this profession

Yes, am proud to be a nurse