In this era of increasing medical technology, changing modes of communication and the expansion of nursing professional roles, ethical, legal and social issues in nursing are increasing. Nurses operate in situations that put them under ethical, legal and social challenges on a daily basis. These issues are linked to legislative changes and ethics of medical technologies geared towards helping nurses to provide better healthcare, for patients. They govern issues of confidentiality, practice, medical issues and the expectations the society has put on nurses. The nursing profession has had radical development and change since its inception. Technology has contributed much to the development of nursing as a profession
Changing societal population demographics, the increase of complex knowledge in healthcare and increasing gaps in the nursing profession have made healthcare professionals and managers to call for an overhaul of the healthcare system (Cowen & Moorhead, 2006). Most recommendations advocating for change in nursing profession propose an increased use of technology that can make nursing practice more efficient. Information technology has the capacity to perform more than simple efficiency increase. Information technology is viewed as a part of the change in healthcare delivery as opposed to the automation of existing processes. This means that it has the potential to change nursing processes within institutions and create a favorable care relationship between nurses and patients. The adoption of technology in the nursing profession, specifically, within the workplace has been possible because of the interactions between technical skills, workplace culture and social support. Nursing requires information technology to prom...
... middle of paper ...
...se of information technology, in their practice.
Information technology issues should apply in nursing practice to help nurses respond appropriately in the betterment of health care.
Conclusion
Information technology has helped transform nursing profession over years. It has helped develop the professional into a unique and distinct profession. Nursing profession is significant in the society because it deals with the health issues. Therefore, information technology issues help in ensuring that patients get appropriate health care and nurses work in favorable working conditions. The improvements made to information technology issues have contributed to the betterment of the profession, over the years. Therefore, nurses must embrace information technology and make use of future developments in nursing profession because they play an essential role in practice.
Working as a professional registered nurse in the hospital, I realized how nurses struggle to find balance between devoting the time charting on the computer and spending time taking care of the patients. Moreover, I’ve seen nurses where they get discouraged trying to find this balance between patients and charting. As a bedside nurse, I would love nothing, but to tend to the needs of my patients. The length of time consume on electronic charting all day, take the very essence of bedside nursing away from nurses, which is caring. Reducing the time of nurses being occupied on charting by eliminating redundant tasks while conforming to their standard, are the changes I would like to make. These are a few of the reasons why I wanted to pursue a degree in informatics. I would advocate for nurses everywhere and to become an instrument in providing them a better electronic health system to work on. Pursuing the degree in nursing informatics will benefit me in
The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston as Health Science Center at Houston
The first definition of nursing informatics was published by the American Nurses Association in 1994. Nursing Informatics is the specialty that integrates nursing science, computer science, and information science in identifying, collecting, processing, and managing data and information to support nursing practice, administration, education, research, and the expansion of nursing knowledge (Murphy, 2010). The term nursing informatics has greatly changed since the 1970’s and has evolved ever since. Today, nursing informatics is defined as the science and practice that integrates nursing, its information and knowledge, with management of information and communication technologies that promote the health of ...
Nursing surrounds the concept of patient care physically, mentally and ethically. The therapeutic relationship that is created is built on the knowledge and skills of the nurse and relies on patient and nurse trusting one another. The use of nursing skills can ensure these boundaries are maintained, it allows for safe patient care. Professional boundaries are the line that nurses cannot cross, involving aspects such as patient confidentiality and privacy, ensuring legal aspects of nursing and the boundaries put in place are not breached. However, nurses accepting financial or personal gain from patient can also cross these professional boundaries. It is only through education in this area that the rights of patients can be preserved, as well as the nursing standards. Through education in areas such as confidentiality, boundaries can remain in tact and the patient care can remain within the zone of helpfulness.
According to the author, nursing practice needs to stay current with technological advances while keeping its identity as a patient focused profession. Nurses use technology to improve care from a patient?s perspective, both in quality of care and cost. At the same time, nurses must learn to balance technological knowledge with personal skills, thus providing optimum clinical care while maintaining a person-focused relationship with the patient.
As a consequence of this transformation, nurses would not be required to work round-the-clock to monitor the clients. Concerning this change, Michael, the head nurse at an excellent clinic, was quick to realize that technology would change the nursing industry tremendously. Just like Sniff, who would predict where the next cheese was, Michael saw the relevance of change in his profession (Who moved my cheese? Full Movie, n.d. -. He, thus, went back to school and enrolled in an Information Technology Management course in the same field.
Technology is stated as the scientific method and material used to achieve a commercial or industrial objective. To go one step further, nursing technology is using a tool to advance nursing practice. “The Institute of medicine identified that technology as a viable method of enhancing patient care delivery and improving staff productivity” Sensmeier, Horowitz (2003 page). Because inadequate nursing staff causes shortcuts to be taken, there are mistakes made that could have possibly been prevented. Errors by nursing staff were variously reported as being responsible for between 44,000 and 98,000 hospital deaths per year. Sensmeier, Horowitz (2003). Technology can have a large impact on nursing. In the past 5 to 10 years, computerized patient records have increased less than 10%. This number shows us that we are still not embracing technology to its full potential. Today in most hospital systems computerized electronic charting is being used. Many hospitals have many different systems for...
Information Systems/Technology and patient care technology for the improvement and transformation of health care is an important part of the DNP. Technology has transformed every aspect of human life in positive ways. Technology brought efficiency and improved healthcare deliverance system. Healthcare technologies enabled practitioners to better understand disease process and how to implement best treatment plan. DNP programs across the country embrace information systems and technology in their nursing curriculum because, it prepares nursing students to be innovative and deliver best care (AACN, 2006). DNP graduates must have the ability to use technology to analyze and disseminate critical information to find solutions that
In conclusion, there are numerous legal and ethical issues apparent in the nursing practice. Nurses should study and be as informed as they can with ethics and legality within their field in order to ensure no mistakes occur. Ethical issues vary based on patient’s views, religion, and environment. Nurses are influenced by these same views, but most of the time they are not the same as the patients. As a nurse we must learn to put the care of our patients and their beliefs, rights, and wishes before our own personal
Nursing Informatics is a nursing field that involves record keeping and focuses on finding ways to improve information management and communications in nursing to improve efficiency, reduce costs and enhance the quality of patient care. This field is primarily administrative but plays a part in patient care and quality of health care. There are other types of nurses, but many people focus on the nurses who perform the medical treatments with the doctors. This is evident in many films, TV shows, and in other popular media outlets. However, many people do not know what nursing informatics is nor pay attention to that side of nursing which involves the documentation of records and other miscellaneous items, use of advances in technology to improve
Similarly, legislation and privacy worries are in effect all cross the globe and nurses have the beliefs which they will continue to keep confidential and private detail and information for their clients within the client doctor realm. However, clients use the medical services to understand that their personal and medical information are not in the wrong person’s hand because in nursing professional, nurses have the most interaction between the client and doctor, these are the preeminent vital to the nurses in nursing
The one topic that we did spend much time on was professionalism, ethics and potential legal issues. Nursing has always been a well-respected profession and demanded ethical and professional behavior and this has helped with the creation of state and national associations that have standardized the nurse’s code of ethics. As nurses we have the ethical responsibility to have nonjudgmental attitudes, to be honest and protect the patient’s rights of privacy and
The nursing field has experienced plenty of advancements both in technology and medicine since the twentieth century. Not only have these advancements changed the face of nursing but have also become an intricate part of the field. Technology has the capacity to improve patient care and outcomes and is therefore of great importance to nursing. How nurses manage clinical workflows and how they deliver patient care have been completely changed by various innovations in software. The rationale used in selecting the topic of advances in nursing is that the world is fast evolving and so is the healthcare sector. Extensive analysis and synthesizing of knowledge, interpretation of information, research and innovations in nursing has been done over the years. It is interesting to have an in-depth look at what has been done by various influencers in the profession. Purpose of this paper is to demonstrate both technological and medical advancements in the nursing field.
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has been shown to be increasingly important in the education or training and professional practice of healthcare. This paper discusses the impacts of using ICT in Healthcare and its administration. Health Information technology has availed better access to information, improved communication amongst physicians, clinicians, pharmacists and other healthcare workers facilitating continuing professional development for healthcare professionals, patients and the community as a whole. This paper takes a look at the roles, benefits of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in healthcare services and goes on to outline the ICT proceeds/equipment used in the health sector such as the
Nursing has evolved through time and the care nurses provide must tailor itself to these changes. Today we live in a world where new technologies are used everywhere. Nurses must stay rooted in human caring while adapting to these advancements. Nursing must not move to be merely a technical practice. Locsin’s theory of Technological Competency as Caring in Nursing works to frame the relationship between nursing care and the use of technology.