Nursing is what nurses do, which entails coordinating and delivering care even amidst changes in technology and health needs of their population; nurses remain to be the primary providers and coordinators of care (Cipriano & Hamer, 2013). Information and communication technologies (ICTs) represents all the digital technologies supporting electronic storage, capture, exchange of information, and processing in promoting health, treating diseases, preventing illnesses, and managing chronic illnesses, and so on. In the health sector, ICT is known as the set of services or projects allowing remote care (telehealth), knowledge transfer, and interdisciplinary clinical support (Rouleau, Gagnon & Côté, 2015).
Impacts of clinical practice workflow
Today, nursing is practiced in a technologically dominated world that has helped nurses care and enhance their safety by using automation functions for simple and complex problems. The fear of many in the health care community was that nurses would be slow in embracing the new technologies and that this might disrupt their change process. This became a mantra within different organizations and they failed to grasp the practical realities faced by professionals with regard to change. Also how to support innovation in the nursing practice was misunderstood by many. Even with the numerous challenges nurses have adopted to like the prevention of adverse events; and coping with the rising acuity in patients among others. Nevertheless, technology explosion has changed the face of many healthcare organizations through increasing the available evidence on which care is based and practiced.
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Many of the organizations have embraced technology in their healthcare environment because it as a way of helping nurses in delivering care. Since today’s healthcare system is founded on information technology, the innovation will continue to play a major role even in the future. With the onset of information technology in the healthcare industry, issues of patient care have been addressed by embracing technologies that support safe, high-quality and patient-centered care (HIMSS, 2011). Such ambitious goals can only be attained through the reduction of healthcare errors (Piscotty et al., 2015). This includes the reduction of occurrence where nursing care is missed that is, the required nursing care being delayed significantly. The most common themes of missed nursing care included in basic nursing care encompass things like patient turning, ambulation, bathing, and feeding among others.
The possibility of integrating ICT into nurses’ processes and scope of practice in the healthcare environment is attributed to the organizational processes of the organization (Rouleau, Gagnon & Côté, 2015). The essential part for such processes is in guaranteeing that the computerized solutions interface with each other. By so doing, the technologies are able to accomplish information related activities and nurses synchronize and exchange information that is significant for the clinician and technology. Thereby, supporting and coordinating the care process by giving patients effective care and ensuring workflow becomes efficient for all health settings. ICTs influence nurses’ working environment and positively impact on professional satisfaction, for instance, the perception by nurses regarding quality of care.
Technology is also used as a clinical decision support system (CDSS) by nurses. It is a guide in their clinical practice thus, improving the outcome of their patients. In the case of CDSS, technology is used by nurses to augment their clinical reasoning. This results in decreased errors and improvement in both safety and quality of patient care (Piscotty et al., 2015). Technology, being a tool, has been implemented for nurses to use and prevents errors faced in the process of delivering care to patients. Accountability issues have also been improved through the use of EHR.
Reflection on the advances in technology
The meaningful utilization of electronic health records (EHR) is a method adopted to increase continuity of patient care by increasing their access to health information. Additionally, increase satisfaction, improve quality of care, provide coordination of care, and increase satisfaction for both the patients and providers (Gomes et al., 2016). At the same time, EHR is intended to lower the costs of care for patients around the globe. In many of the healthcare settings, electronic medication has been integrated to look at prescribing, online appointment scheduling, tele-health, and mobile laboratories. The change brought by technology in the healthcare system has changed the image of the industry and this will continue even in the future.
The transformations happening in the healthcare setting are as a result of fragmentation, unsustainable costs, access problems, disparities, access problems, and suboptimal outcomes (Salmond & Echevarria, 2017). Nevertheless, transformations continue to be experienced by nurses in the delivery of care. The important issues that need to be resolved with regard to such transformation include privacy, data exchange and interoperability, participant identification and authentication; and workflow integration for clinical providers, families and individuals. In the next few years, it is predicted that 70% of the clinics or offices will be replaced with remote monitoring techniques, virtual house calls, and digital health records For example, today people are using smartphone-based artificial pancreas to monitor their glucose levels.
Potential impacts of technologies on job satisfaction
According to Ratna and Kaur (2016), job satisfaction is defined as the view of employee, favorableness or un-favorableness, of their work displayed through their attitudes. The attitudes come into play due to factors such as wages, working conditions, employment supervision, social and human relation on the job and employer’s fair treatment, and so on. Other factors like health temperature, age of employee, level of aspiration and desire need to be considered. The others like social status, family relationship, and recreational outlets also contribute to job satisfaction. The use of modern technologies results in employees’ ‘working smarter’ and providing high quality service to their clients. Therefore, the use of modern technologies creates work systems that have high performance and this will entail support measures by human resource department using reward systems and offering training opportunities to their employees. By reconfiguring this into the employees’ work system, then they will attain high levels of job satisfaction on using technologies related to their nursing practice (Ratna & Kaur, 2016).
Nurses using technology to partner with patients
The mobile lifestyle of people in today’s world has created a new context even for the health sector. The health industry is seeing advances in digital health technologies that include sensors, personal health apps, big data, and cloud-based data housing. All these are essential for healthcare providers when engaging with their patients because it manages to tap into their strength. As such, they are able to make health decisions (Austin & Hull, 2014). For nurses, this means partnering with their patients in adopting technologies in new models and in brick-and-motor settings of more continuous care. In terms of self-care, these technologies are tools that help patients to undertake remote monitoring and care coordination. The family care is now virtually anywhere and thus, ICT technologies continue to complement the traditional care settings. It is through these technologies that nurses are able to effectively engage in the care of their patients. Furthermore, technologies define competencies and develop future nursing workforce that embrace the use of mobile plus other technologies that support the delivery of healthcare to the population.
The aspect of ‘e-patients’ and ‘health citizens’ continue to gain recognition in the health sector because through personal health-information, patients deepen their participation in their own health care (Austin & Hull, 2014). Engagement, empowerment, equipped, and enabled are what are emphasized through the use of such technologies. Other tools such as patient portals, email communications, mobile health (mHealth like text messaging appointments) apps, and personal health records are some of the tools used in strengthening patients’ family care, health choices and knowledge, and self-care.
mHealth is a terminology used in the health industry to refer to the interventions that are related to health such as automated clinical decision support and reminders to video visits among others (Austin & Hull, 2014). Both nurses and patients are familiar with smartphone and mHealth solutions have managed to leverage other functions into the mobile phones. Thereby, creating a powerful tool of life-management for patients that supports their fitness, social connections, and health. The other self-care tools in use include the wearable sensors that monitor an individual’s weight, all which have been included in smartphone-enabled fitness apps.
Through the use of technologies, nurses are also able to design for their patients care plans, assessments, and multimedia programs (Danis, Ballen & Minniti, 2014). This technology-enabled support for nurses looks at care coordination that will be conducted before and after clinic or hospital visitation by the patient(s). Some of the mHealth solutions have been able to provide this care coordination across community members, patient monitoring can be handled remotely, exchange of care plans is now possible and adherence is now possible to measure. The importance of such tools is broadening the access of patients’ to communication, health services, and data sharing.
References
Austin, R. R., & Hull, S. (2014). The power of mobile health technologies and prescribing apps. CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing , 32(11), 513-515.
Cipriano, P. F., & Hamer, S. (2013). Nursing technology, and information systems. American Nurse Today , 8(11), SR1-SR19
Danis, C., Ballen, S., & Minniti, M. J. (2014). Using technology to engage patients and improve outcomes. J Healthc Inf Manag , 28(1).
Gomes, M., Hash, P., Orsolini, L., Watkins, A., & Mazzoccoli, A. (2016). Connecting professional practice and technology at the bedside: Nurses' beliefs about using an electronic health record and their ability to incorporate professional and patient-centered nursing activities in patient care. Computers, Informatics, Nursing , 34(12), 578. Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMS). (2011). HIMSS nursing informatics position statement. Retrieved from: www.himss.org/files/HIMSSorg/handouts/HIMSSNIPositionStatementMonographReport.pdf
Piscotty, J. R., Kalisch, B., & Gracey-Thomas, A. (2015). Impact of healthcare information technology on nursing practice. Journal of Nursing Scholarship , 47(4), 287-293.
Ratna, R., & Kaur, T. (2016). The impact of information technology on job related factors like health and safety, job satisfaction, performance, productivity
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Rouleau, G., Gagnon, M. P., & Côté, J. (2015). Impacts of information and communication technologies on nursing care: an overview of systematic reviews (protocol). Systematic Reviews , 4(1), 75.
Salmond, S. W., & Echevarria, M. (2017). Healthcare transformation and changing roles for nursing. Orthop Nursing , 36(1), 12-25.
