I.

Essay: Nursing Informatics

1. Comparison of our past and present technology in Nursing Practice

Past & Present Technology in Nursing Practice: A Comparison

Looking back at the integration of technology in the nursing field, beneficial change has been
achieved. Prior to technology, nursing solely focused on the providing care towards the physical needs
of the patient as well as ensuring a safe and clean environment. As time progressed, technological
breakthroughs emerged wherein providing care and saving more lives took place at a more progressive
pace through the emergence of wireless devices for monitoring patients and electronic medication
administration and clinical documentation. With that said, the main differences in the technological
innovations of the past and present in the nursing field can be categorized into three areas: the platform
used, the medium wherein services are availed, and the manner in which services take place. In terms of
the platform used for data storage, communication, education and research, earlier times relied on
manual devices or a combination of manual and early models of computers and data bases but jumping
back to the present, these are all being catered by digital computers, smart mobile phones and
applications. In terms of the medium of service, earlier nurses heavily relied on analog models for health
record taking. In some areas, this is still being practiced in the present time yet SMART models for taking
vital statistics, such as the oxygen saturation monitor and smart devices for healthcare tracking, are used
more often. Lastly, the manner of how services take place have gradually shifted from previously being
delayed and withheld to being instantaneous and real-time.

2. What is your future technology vision in Nursing Practice?

Future Technology Vision in Nursing Practice

As technology is continuously enhanced to suit the needs of society, particularly in the
healthcare and nursing fields, the future of nursing technology relies on the goal to further improve
patient care through being more user-friendly, for nurses and patients alike, as well as to simplify the
process of patient data processing and analysis, with simpler yet cohesive digital platforms. With these
goals in mind, the transition to go digital will include SMART healthcare devices that may instantly
record health information and statistics of patients as well as going completely “paper-free” in terms of
patient data collection, storage and analysis which may all be accessed through a healthcare application
in a mobile device. Moreover, more user-friendly and clinical board reviewed healthcare applications
will make it possible for diagnostic findings, medical and drug database references, and laboratory
results to be accessed through mobile phones. With the current integration of the Electronic Health
Database in Philippine Healthcare, the future of nursing technology is promising.

II. Nursing Technology Article Reaction Paper (minimum 150 words, 20 points)

Electronic Info To Raise Quality Of Ph Healthcare

By Reiner Lorenzo Jarabe Tamayo (July 13, 2015)

Record-keeping or documentation is an essential part of nursing practice that has clinical and legal
significance at the same time. It is said that quality documentation improves patient care which results
in better outcomes, while poor documentation often contributes to poor-quality nursing care (prideaux,
2011). Nursing documentation, a precursor to good patient care, is a vessel for efficient interdisciplinary
communication and cooperation (ammenwerth, mansmann, iller, & eichstadter, 2003).

Nurses in majority of healthcare facilities in the Philippines still practice paper nursing documentation. A
report of the Maryland nursing workforce commission (2007) revealed that such method of
documentation reduces the time spent at the bedside for patient care, thus directly affecting outcomes.
This is where nursing informatics comes in.

Nursing informatics “aims to improve the health of populations, communities, families and individuals
by optimizing information management and communication” (ana, 2001). It is fundamental in providing
cost-effective high-quality healthcare, of which an important component is accurate clinical information.

Thede (2003) explained that electronic information systems provide an avenue for more effective
communication and collection of patient health information resulting in more effective patient care. One
example of such information system is the electronic health record or ehr, where multiple systems that
cross to share data are networked to support efficient information management and communication
within a healthcare system. Ehr is largely advantageous because it tends to store large amounts of data
that are made accessible at the same time in different places. What makes this system more interesting
is its ability to provide healthcare teams with clinical alerts and reminders when abnormal parameters
are identified in both laboratory and assessment data.

Electronic-based documentation systems would be of great value to Philippine hospitals with a nurse-
patient ratio higher than the ideal. When the staffing ratio is high, nurses tend to allot more of their time
documenting rather than actually caring for their patients at the bedside. In an electronic-based
documentation system, trends in patient outcomes will be highlighted alongside medical and nursing
management.

Such systems, while integrating the concepts and theories of nursing science, computer science and
information science, propel the entire healthcare delivery system into a practice that is evidence-based
and culturally-relevant. These systems should not be regarded as a substitute for clinical judgment or as
a predictor of critical illness but as a tool that could help identify life-threatening cases.

Though most of Philippine hospitals are quite far from achieving this, such information systems should
be viewed as a crucial facet in promoting a culture of patient safety where the documentation standards
help and/or equally meet the standards of medical and nursing care.

Tamayo, R. (2015, July 13). Electronic Info To Raise Quality Of Ph Healthcare. Philippine
Daily Inquirer.

https://opinion.inquirer.net/86638/electronic-info-to-raise-quality-of-ph-healthcare

According to Danielle Siarri, a Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society

member and registered nurse, “Healthcare and technology were separate entities that have now fused
into one language which evolves daily.” With this in mind, the future of the nursing practice will
gradually incorporate technology in aims to save more patient lives at a faster pace that we are
currently are doing so. The author, Reiner Tamayo, who is a registered nurse, indicates in his article that
healthcare technology, such as the electronic health record, will be highly beneficial to nurses as it will
not only reduce the time spent on manually documenting patient records but more importantly, have
more allotted time to the actual caring and management of their patients. In this day and age wherein
the Philippine healthcare field is gradually implementing the EHR systems in their hospital protocols,
much work is still needed to be accomplished to assess the convenience and reliability of this new
technological systems, nevertheless, one thing certain is that the future of nursing technology is
promising as it will give the nurses more opportunity in improving their management outcomes for their
patients.