Free essay about impacts of Technology and New Advancements in Nursing

In the past decade, the nursing profession has undergone tremendous transformations in critical areas, which have made it better and more precise. Worldwide, technological applications in nursing have become inseparable from the practice, and the effects are profound. As the society continues modernizing, it comes along with increasing development and integration of technology systems in health care. As a result, nurses have been encountering evolutions that apply to different care segments and the patients have benefited significantly. Indeed, it is a way of increasing efficiency, and it is reasonable to advocate more of it as time advances. As analyzed herein, technology and new advancements have impacted nursing profoundly, and the outcome is visible in matters involving patient care, information management, and patient safety and nursing efficiency as well as supporting online nursing education.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Currently, it is impossible to visit a health care facility and not identify technological applications in multiple areas. Communication between nurses and patients has also become digitized, and patients can access health care advice and support without being physically present at the health units. More so, a lot of information is accessible online that help people to make wise health care decisions. For that reason, technology integration is multidimensional as far as its utilization in nursing is concerned. It has led to better processes, efficient healthcare, more medical information, and prompt services. Indeed, new advancements are visible in the current healthcare settings and the approaches that nurses use to address patients problems have also advanced with time.

Online Nursing Education

To become more conversant with how systems work, nurses require education. However, their location and means of access to education facilities have proved to be a significant challenge when quality concerns come into the equation. The inference, here, is that unavailability of systems that can address distance and information availability can affect the quality of education that nurses are supposed to possess. However, things have changed over time due to the proliferation of technology. Today, online nursing education is in plenty and nurses can study different concepts related to the practice without necessarily traveling to physical locations.

Currently, nursing education is applying technology to supplement simulations and creating virtual environments. Herein, they can participate in activities that mimic real-life situations and learn more about the utilization of electronic health records and other interventions that improve patient care (O'Neil, Cheryl, and Matthew 47). Through technological facilities such as the course management system (CMS), nurses can partner in academic settings to explore more about the things that affect them together. Such systems also enable students' training while creating an online space for nursing organizations and support groups (O'Neil, Cheryl, and Matthew 47-48). Through these facilities, it is more convenient for a nurse to study anywhere and get accredited without being hampered by barriers

More so, nursing schools utilize technology in all dimensions-academically and non-academically. With the help of technology, it has become easier for nursing schools to use learning and content management systems to create an online community. More so, through the support of websites, databases, and online libraries, schooling is currently less challenging. Research in nursing is also more convenient, and faculties can communicate more conveniently unlike in the past. Today, for instance, it is possible to use web conferencing to conduct online information sessions for potential students (O'Neil, Cheryl, and Matthew 47-48). Also, faculties in nursing education can use technology to assemble members from distances and analyze issues that affect them collectively.

Better Patient Care

Patient care in nursing is an extensive area that incorporates different elements that typify quality. For instance, diagnosis and treatment procedures need to be accurate for patient care to be regarded as effective. More so, the patient's safety should be a guarantee irrespective of the patient's concern. More so, there should be minimal issues regarding nurse-patient communication. Even though modern technology in nursing is somewhat at its infancy, there has been tremendous progress in its application which leads to better patient care. Indeed, if the same efforts advance over time, there will be minimal issues as far as patient management is concerned.

With the use of intensive care information systems (ICIS), the time that nurses use in a given activity such as documentation reduces (Jelec, Sukalic, and Friganovic 23). Also, as it applies in real-life, application of technology and new advancements reduce exertion on nurses and guarantees higher productivity. Since technology and related innovations require nurses to use machinery and other tech devices to assess patients' concerns, there is more accuracy and quick decision making. This advancement ensures that nurses are not necessarily required to use their senses of sight and smell to follow up the status of a patient. Machines can detect all the problems for them.

When it comes to patients' information handling, it is right deducing that the current scenario has proved highly beneficial to the entire nursing practice. With the help of technology, there is easier access to patients' history of care. In the same case, data entry and conversion has tremendously improved, and nurses can always get useful information to make the right decisions (Jelec, Sukalic, and Friganovic 23-24). With the availability of medical information being a non-issue due to improved storage and quick retrieval, quick services have become a part of modern nursing.

Information Management

With no doubt, nurses deal with numerous pieces of data whose management determines the type of services they offer the patients. Over time, the healthcare sector has become complicated due to the accumulation of large databases that require sensitivity in handling. More so, other activities apart from patient information such as care funding, delivery, and challenges as well as various needs require a recording to warrant safety. When all these considerations come into the equation, information governance becomes a critical issue and technology has been helping to improve the same.

The essential need for data governance emanates from the fact that significant health care providers are extensive and complex organizations; they handle numerous processes with a wide range of functional capabilities (Hovenga and Heather 303). From this complex arrangement, activities involving data management such as compilation, storage, and retrieval need to be accurate and precise. With the help of technology and many IT systems, all this has been addressed, and other aspects such as data recording and security have reached advanced levels. This assertion implies that they are better today and the staff required to do the same have significantly reduced since technology allows the administration of numerous functions through one device.

Irrespective of where a nurse is operating a health care facility, the fact remains that they are linked to data (Hovenga and Heather 301). For instance, attending patients require keeping a record of their different concerns for future reference. The ones in the laboratories require maintenance of patient's data electronically. This way, the future handling of the same patients becomes less challenging with time since their past information is not only available but quickly retrievable. When it reaches such a point, it is justified deducing that data governance is a broad concept that spans beyond typical patient's attendance. However, with technology, it has improved, and the trend is likely to remain unchanged.

Patient Safety

In nursing practice, issues to do with patients' safety emerge when data management becomes a problem. When they present different concerns from time to time, a well-preserved database can help to address their health concerns accurately. In response, errors become minimal and electronic medical records (EMRs) have been instrumental in enabling the same. EMRs, which involve computerized patient records, allow accurate decision-making by replacing traditional paper records (Parente and Jeffrey 358). Considering that patient safety indicators are the outcomes of the service they receive, it is right deducing that EMRs remain a health IT component that is profoundly significant on matters to do with patient safety.

The guarantee of patient safety also involves giving the right medication. In this case, technology has significantly reduced the risk of errors in critical aspects such as diagnosis, drugs, and treatment of diseases. More so, it has enabled the nurses to minimize hospital infections. Through technology, also, nurses have portable devices that allow them to detect a patient's conditioning if it is worsening. Therefore, they can give timely responses: this ensures that a patient is safe at all times (Jelec, Sukalic, and Friganovic 25). Above all, and in summation, inventions such as telemedicine and E-health services will continue advancing healthcare processes and enhancing safety by enabling error-free services.

Works Cited

Hovenga, E J. S, and Heather Grain. Health Information Governance in a Digital Environment. IOS Press, 2013.

Jerec, Katarina, Sukaric, Sabina, and Friganovic, Adriano. "Nursing and Implementation of Modern Technology." Signa vitae: journal for intesive care and emergency medicine 12.1. (2016): 23-27.

O'Neil, Carol A, Cheryl A. Fisher, and Matthew J. Rietschel. Developing Online Learning Environments in Nursing Education. New York, NY: Springer, 2014.

Parente, Stephen T., and Jeffrey S. McCullough. "Health information technology and patient safety: evidence from panel data." Health Affairs 28.2 (2009): 357-360.