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THE INFLUENCE OF ADVANCEMENT IN TECHNOLOGY ON NURSING AND
MIDWIFERY EDUCATION AND PRACTICE.
DENG MAJOK DENG 24/U/0371
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Technology is an important aspect in today’s world. Take for instance the graph above was
made possible using technology. When we talk about nursing and midwifery; the former
means the collaborative care to sick in consort with well people to promote health, the latter
means necessary support, care and advice during pregnancy, labour and the postpartum
period, given to a pregnant mother. In addition to this, nursing and midwifery education
involves the formal pathway followed to eventually obtaining licensure in the professions. A
brief talk about this education would include hospital-based diploma program, associate
degree program and baccalaureate programs. Others can also talk about nursing assistants and
practical/vocational nurses.
In today’s world the improvement in technology has been so rapid and new ventures have
been observed for example the use of Electronic health records (EHR), Computerized
physician/provider order entry (CPOE) and others like computerized management of patient
care. These can all be incorporated into nursing and midwifery education and practice;
however, the influence can be constructive or peculiar depending on the usage.
Let’s dive right into the positive impact of technological advancement on nursing and
midwifery education and practice.
1. The Electronic health records (EHR) system. This is basically a patient record
system but serves to function more than that as it captures, communicates and
presents data about the patient. In essence, it integrates information from multiple
sources and provide decision support. Look at it this way; a patient went to his regular
hospital with a different kind of problem. Due to the previous history or records, the
health care team is able to approach more clinically and have better decisions than
when the staff has no data on that particular patient at all. Therefore, the work of
nurses and midwives is thus simplified nonetheless.
2. Time saving. Sometimes there can be miscommunication in terms of handwriting
especially when the substance cannot be read, in this case a person has to make a
follow-up call to confirm the prescription or decipher the orders. This is where
Computerized physician order entry (CPOE) comes in to save the day. Computer
prompts may be used to indicate such items as default doses and a range of potential
doses for each medication, and to indicate a requirement to enter dosage, route, and
frequency for each order. This eliminates the time-consuming process for nurses of
contacting providers to obtain complete information about a patient’s treatment.
3. Computerized management of patient care. I am positive that majority of people
have seen patients in hospitals with monitors by their bedside, displaying graphs and
what have you. That is what I am referring to in this context. Here, technology is used
directly in the care for the patient. Some of the devices used include ECG monitors
meant for the cardiac rhythms of the patient, blood pressure measuring equipment and
even alarms that are set off when the patient becomes unstable due to set parameters
being exceeded. These have become a ‘miracle’ in the nursing and midwifery care for
DENG MAJOK DENG 24/U/0371
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their patients since the devices warn the care takers in time for efficient service
provision.
4. Have you heard of the eICU ? Prepare to be amazed by this unique collaboration.
Ok the electronic intensive care unit (eICU) is just a modification of ICU. This works
best for long distance close monitoring of critically ill patients. In this case you have
two nurses collaborating together; that is the eICU nurse and the bedside nurse. The
eICU nurse monitors the patient from another centre using video and monitoring
equipment to make calls on the next step of care, while the bedside nurse receives
information from the eICU nurse. This collaboration ensures that critically ill patients
are well taken care of and more so, it can be effective for monitoring more than a
single particular patient.
5. Telehealth. Just like the name suggests, telehealth is the use of phones and other
communication devices to provide long-distance clinical health care. It should not be
confused with eICU even though both involve long-distance care. Nurses, physicians,
radiologists, psychiatrists, and others use this technology via telephone, computers,
interactive videos, and teleconferencing. In many instances, telehealth makes possible
the delivery of health care services to populations, such as rural communities, older
adults, or prisoners that may have difficulty accessing necessary services. So in the
essence, a patient is able to receive care without need of visiting the health facility and
ask how it benefits us, it aids provision of services that are ‘self-care’ category to the
patient.
6. Clinical decision support systems. These are software systems designed to assist
nurses and midwives on decision making regarding treatment of patients. It is
important to note that we are not implying that nurses have no autonomy when it
comes to patient treatment, or lack knowledge but rather perfects their treatment plan.
This is because this system integrates the knowledge and patient data and functions to
give advice on the treatment of that particular patient. So as these kinds of
technologies are progressing, so must patient care. This improves the accuracy and
efficiency of care that nurses and midwives provide.
7. Majority of the influences of technological advancements have been focused on the
practice of nurses and midwives. Let me bring out one specific influence on the
‘education’ of nursing and midwifery. When we look at how technology is advancing
incredibly fast, one would not fail to note how this will affect the nursing and
midwifery curriculum. Hints on this education were provided above as including
diploma, degree, baccalaureate and all those connected. Now, if you are to help future
nurses integrate this technology into their profession, there’s need to train them in the
various technological tools indicated. That means the curriculum would be adjusted to
a greater depth in the various technological trends and equipment to suit the needs of
the ‘modern’ world. In that pretext, we can then be able to release to the world well
accomplished nurses that can deal with the challenges it presents.
DENG MAJOK DENG 24/U/0371
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All the above points are on the positive influence of technology on the nursing and
midwifery profession. However, much as technology is good, it can have its side-
effects or negative portion.
We talked about patient records and EHR (electronic health records), much as this
information is kept safely and protected from the public, there would be a concern of
invasion of privacy if their records leak out or are accessed maliciously by
individuals. Yes, sometimes there can be hacking of the system and the culprits can
use this information to blackmail people, thus infringing on their rights to privacy.
Then we can also add on the fact that much as these devices and equipment are
oriented to the nurses, there may be cases of inadequate knowledge on the use and
operation of these devices. This can invoke loop holes within the health system
although this is to a lesser extent as we said earlier that the midwives and nurses are
trained to use them. An example would be maybe the nursing assistants of Unlicensed
Assitive Personnel (UAP) who do not get acquainted so much in the educational
pathway.
Basing on the discussion, its obvious to note that technological advancements can
improve nursing and midwifery more than they can cripple it.
With technology advancing at warp speed, it is difficult to imagine the future, but
some of our current technologies offer some insight about the possibilities of a greater
good with little negative impact. What I am trying to say is that we should embrace
technology in the education and practice of nursing and midwifery while monitoring
the repercussions that threaten to crumble it.
DENG MAJOK DENG 24/U/0371
