Srikanth
Nursing is a field that has had to evolve with changing times and practices. More and more technology has become integrated into nursing practices, evolving the profession, and increasing its ability to be effective.
Today, there are game-changing tech developments happening in the nursing field that could potentially change the way nursing is done.
Exciting Advancements in Nursing Technology
Some new technologies are entering the nursing scene to help nurses become more effective in their roles and improve patients’ experiences of medicine. Here are some new technologies making waves in the nursing community.
Electronic Health Records
Though the idea has been around for decades, many attempts at making electronic health records easily accessible to healthcare workers have been fraught with issues. In the past, electronic health records were difficult to implement because the advancements in technology just hadn’t made their way to medical filing yet.
Thankfully, this has begun to change. New developments have made the process of reporting, sharing, and filing electronic health records easier and more accessible for healthcare workers. With this new and positive change underway, nurses are beginning to save valuable time that they can channel towards improving patients’ healthcare experiences rather than searching for records in an outdated system.
Medical Robots
Medical robots are exactly what one might imagine they are. They’re robots designed to assist healthcare workers in performing their duties and providing patients with care. In fact, medical robots have even begun to assist surgeons with surgery, increasing effectiveness and helping with the problem of surgeon fatigue.
As for nursing, medical robots have the potential to radically transform the profession by assisting with several key nursing duties. These duties include delivering medicine to patients and sanitizing both tools and physical spaces. If nurses were able to completely free themselves of these menial duties, they would have more time and energy to provide patients with better healthcare experiences.
Portable Monitors
Portable monitors are a fascinating new technology that has begun to significantly impact how patients receive healthcare. In essence, portable monitors are compact machines that patients utilize to communicate data about their health to medical professionals. These can be used both within hospital settings and outside of them.
Portable monitors can be especially useful and impactful for the profession of nursing. Whereas nurses used to have to be in the physical presence of a patient to monitor their health, this new medical technology allows them to be mobile in a healthcare facility while still being able to monitor the various health data and vital levels of their patients.
Telehealth and Social Media
Telehealth is the name for the practice of providing healthcare through the medium of technological devices such as phones, tablets, and computers. The ease with which patients can now receive medical care from the comfort of their own homes has the power to make healthcare both more affordable and more convenient.
In addition, social media has presented itself as an easy way for nurses to communicate to peers and foster professional connections. However, it is important that nurses are careful on social media, as patient privacy should never be breached through these forms of media.
Healthcare Apps
In addition to telehealth and social media, medical apps have begun to present themselves as useful tools in the healthcare profession. Nurses in particular are benefitting greatly from these unique and effective resources. One can gain a clearer understanding of today’s nursing profession by understanding some of the apps that are becoming staples in the profession. Here are some of the apps that healthcare workers are utilizing to improve their practice:
Nursing Central App
The Nursing Central App allows nurses to immediately access the most up-to-date information on a range of subjects that are important to their profession. This can include updates to medical procedures and new information available about specific diseases.
Nursing is a fast-paced and stressful job and the idea that nurses must utilize large chunks of their personal time to research new nursing information seems unnecessary. With the Nursing Central App, nurses can be sure that they’re being notified when new and pertinent information about their work becomes available, ensuring that they are always providing the best care to their patients possible.
Google Translate
Google Translate is an app that allows anyone to translate speech and text into dozens of languages. Though many will see the value in having this tool, they may wonder how it adds value to nurses working in healthcare facilities.
Google Translate has become an important tool in nursing because there are many people who speak a variety of languages that need medical care. Being able to clearly communicate to patients is an important facet of nursing, and Google Translate helps facilitate this vital aspect of nursing in situations where it would be difficult — or even impossible — without it.
NurseGrid
Healthcare facilities can often run into problems when trying to keep track of healthcare employee schedules, due to the varying time and large amount of workers. NurseGrid is a scheduling app that caters towards the schedules of nurses.
With the app, nurses can share and compare their schedules with their colleagues, making trading shifts far easier than it would be without a streamlined platform. The ease of access makes NurseGrid a powerful tool for nurses to keep track of their schedules while being able to keep track of their colleague’s schedules as well.
Keener
A huge problem in the nursing profession is burnout, in which nurses feel overwhelmed and stressed as a result of their work. In addition to the toil it causes nurses, burnout can also negatively impact the quality of care that nurses provide to patients. Keener is an app designed to help nurses prevent themselves from getting to the point of burnout.
The Keener app provides a variety of tools to help nurses keep themselves from experiencing burnout. One valuable feature of the app is its “shift reflection” tool, which allows nurses to keep track of how they are feeling after each shift. By helping nurses stay aware of their mental states, Keener can help empower nurses to take care of their mental health before their symptoms of burnout become too severe.
Welcoming Changes in Nursing
Though change isn’t always easy, it’s important that nurses take advantage of the new and exciting technological advancements that offer healthcare workers the opportunity to improve healthcare in a variety of ways.
The field of healthcare is evolving, and nurses will be some of the first people to experience and utilize the new forms of technology that are entering the healthcare space. Though the future of healthcare may look much different than it is today, both nurses and patients alike can benefit from the new technological tools that are becoming available.
