Question

How does technology improve nursing care

Answer 1

Technoloy improves the standards of nurses care. In various aspects the technology helps the nurses to provide quality nursing care to the clients. Following are some of the various ways of improving the nursing care by the use of technology.

1. Communication is an important factor while rendering the nursing care. Communication between various health care team can be made easy by using emails, messages and various other modes of communication. Various software used in different hospital enables the communication easier by the exchange of information regarding each patient such as assessment data, lab results, diagnostic results. The access to old medical records and reports to all the health care team members is another advantage of technology. The coordination of care between the team members is made easy by the technology.

2. Provision of patient centered care

Patient care is made easy by the availiability of electronic medical records to the nurses .The assessment of patients problem and the communication of the same to the team members is made easy by the use of electronic medical records. The patient condition in each day and shift can be easily compared by the use of hospital softwares.  Documentation of the care is effective with the use of these software.

The nurses can use evidence based practice by updating their knowledge timely and can depend on technologies for various clinical decision making. The errors while delivering the care such as medication error can be minimized by using the references which is readily available through electronic sources. If any doubts while rendering the care can be clarified by the availability of electronic sources. Intergrated patient information helps the nurses to know accurately about the patient needs for care.

3. Documentation

The documentation is a key aspect in the process of care delivery in patients. The maintanance of records and reports made easy by the use of technology. It reduces the time spent on the process of documentation. A well organised patient documentation system can help to provide easier and faster provision of information needed for patient care. The progress of the health can be easily identified

4. A solution for shortage of nurses

The use of various technologies may help to cope with the shortageof nursing staff by having fewer nurses to render the nursing care, Telemedicine is a newer technology which helps the nurses to provide quality care in rural areas with shortage of staff.