Technology continues to grow faster with each day. Unfortunately, it can take a while to be utilized by health providers within the health care system. While I was completing my ADN program, there was little use of any sort of technology with the exception of electronic medical records, utilizing a bar code for medications, bedside monitoring, EKG monitoring, and checking ER wait times. But in retrospect, these are all limited to the hospital. In the blog “Digital Trends in nursing”, the blogger, Raney Linck, focuses on how technology can be used within health care and how it will impact nurses.
For me, technology is extremely important in the future of nursing. In the blog, Linck shared with us how that the wearable biometric monitoring systems are booming. There are phone apps that become EKG monitors and headsets that can measure heart rates and more. But it makes me wonder, what happens to all the data collected from these applications? Can they be sent to health care providers for monitoring? If they can, will this decrease the amount of hospital stays for those patients under observation?
As much as I enjoy the ease of technology, I don’t believe that technology should ever replace any assessment. As much as programmers try, there will always be errors and the use of technology can never duplicate that gut feeling that something is not right. Plus, assessing patients for change is the most important part of nursing. I do, however, feel that technology and nurses can work hand in hand, such as continuous EKG monitoring on a telemetry floor.
In my future as a nurse, it will be important for me to understand how each program and app works so I will be able to better care for each patient. And after searching through the rnnext.com website, I have found some apps that I can download onto my phone which will be great references when I’m out in the field.
