Digital technology in healthcare
After reading Digital Trends In Nursing, I was surprised to learn about some of the advancements in healthcare, sensors attached to smartphones that can assess a person’s mental health, academic performance, and behavioral trends, an app dubbed PATRICIA that can assist veterans with PTSD, iPhone’s turned into portable EKG monitors, and ear buds that are not only used to hear music but they also record heart rate, calories burned, total energy expenditure, and maximum oxygen consumption. These are only a few advancements tech companies are currently working on. I read an article that mentioned a digital health company that is located in California and London and is currently developing a sensor for medications that is activated by digestive juices when taken by mouth (Morrissey, 2015). This sensor will be both ingestible and digestible (Morrissey, 2015). After this sensor is activated, it is suppose to transmit information to a skin patch, which then sends the information to an app on a smart phone device (Morrissey, 2015). Healthcare providers can then access this information to see if a person has been compliant with taking their medications (Morrissey, 2015). With the Affordable Care Act and the federal government providing incentives for healthcare providers to go digital; It should be of no surprise that technology is now transforming healthcare (Lee, 2013). Tech companies are now finding ways to make their innovations compatible with smartphones, which the majority of society already owns. Nurses will need to be up-to date with technology in order to properly educate patients on these advancements in a hospital setting, doctor’s office, and at home. In the hospital I work in patients are being taught how to access their health records at home via mobile devices. The plus side to all these innovations is being able to obtain individual data that can help with assessing and properly diagnosing a patient. It all sounds great. These advancements will provide individual patient centered care and I can see an increase of nurses working in home health versus a hospital setting in the near future. Patient’s will no longer need unnecessary test or have to be admitted into a hospital for monitoring that can be done at home using your mobile device. This new technology could help save money in healthcare cost and improve a person’s health by detecting certain diseases early, but at what price? Are they safe? To some degree a person’s privacy will be affected. Someone will have access to every place you go, what you eat and what activities you do. It reminds me of the 1993 movie Demolition Man staring Sylvester Stallone and Sandra Bullock. As I was watching this movie I remember, thinking when will we have this type of technology? It all seemed far-fetched. Now I can see myself utilizing this technology in the near future. All this technology is in the early and experimental stages (Lee, 2013). I don’t believe anyone knows the long terms effects these advancements will have on a person? Only time will tell. Until then many tech companies are will continue to find innovated ways for patients to be monitored at outside the hospital setting with incentives being dollar signs, lowering healthcare cost and making individualized patient centered care.
Reference
Lee, E. (2013). 5 ways technology is transforming health care. Forbes. Retrieved from:http://www.forbes.com/sites/bmoharrisbank/2013/01/24/5-ways-technology-is-transforming-health-care/
Morrissey, J. (2015). The medical technologies that are changing health care. Hospitals &Health Networks. Retrieved from:http://www.hhnmag.com/ Magazine /2015/Apr/cover-medical-technology
