Effects of Technology on Patient Care

Of Patients and Patient Care Units

Patient care can come in different forms. Because there are specific illnesses/diseases that need special attention, patient care units are installed to cater their medical needs. There are at least 7 major types of patient care outlets for those needing medical help. These are Primary, Specialty, Emergency, Urgent, Long-Term, Hospice and Mental Healthcare.

These patient care facilities have specific functions.

Primary Care
This is a type of facility that focuses on preventing illnesses through regular check-ups and health screening. Primary care outlets treat regular sicknesses such as a common cold or fever.

Specialty Care
Specialty care treats patients that require special skills. Specialty care can be ongoing or preventative. Cardiologists and physical therapists usually work inside specialty care units.

Emergency Care
Professionals under emergency care are usually associated with ambulance services. Emergency care provides medical help to patients with life-threatening diseases, or in need of immediate help.

Urgent Care
An urgent care differs from an emergency care outlet. Urgent care facilities treat illnesses such as cuts, sprains, infections and others that need constant care.

Long-Term Care
These are cares that treat people with disabilities, or to those who can’t perform daily activities due to a chronic illness. Long-term care is a combination of nursing and social care. They are sometimes called assisted living facilities.

Hospice Care
Providing physical, emotional and spiritual care is a primary concern of hospice care. They help ease symptoms of such diseases, not so much on curing them. Hospice care makes way for the patient’s family, too, in coping with the former’s condition.

Mental Healthcare
Mental healthcare treats patients with mental disabilities or those who are undergoing psychological problems and is being treated with medication or psychotherapy. Psychiatrists and counselors can be found inside mental healthcare units.

Patient care units may be a combination of these types, but their main function remains the same. They provide constant care and attention to those who are in need of medical help.

Nurses at Patient Care Units

Patient care comes in a variety of forms. It has seen an expansion over the years to cater every possible need of every patient. Taking care of the sick is the only reason why patient care exists, although others have their own specialization, but their main concern remains the same, and that is, giving medical care to the sick.

There are also different types of nurses attending these said patient care units. When the development of patient care outlets started, the formation of adding specialized workforce was already in the works. And this paved the way for the inclusion of these type of nurses. These nurses, however, do have different roles to keep, but most often than not, their calling hasn’t changed. The following are types of nurses you would find in a patient care outlet.

Emergency or Trauma Nurses
They treat patients who are in the brink of death, such as in an accident or after suffering from a debilitating disease. They are usually situated on emergency rooms, getting ready to assist life-threatening situations with their patients.

Critical Care Nurses
It may sound like they have the same responsibility with Emergency Nurses, but a Critical Nurse’s sole responsibility is to treat those patients with pulmonary and cardio-vascular ailments.

Holistic Nurses
These type of nurses are into a different kind of patient treatment. They concern themselves with mental disorders as well as maintaining the spiritual health of their patients.

Infusion Nurses
Nurses who are more attuned to injections, particularly with blood transfusions and other diseases that have something to do with vein problems.

Home Health Care Nurses
They are the ones who provide care to their patients like that in a home. They extend help to those patients who have survived a major surgery or after giving birth, while providing assistance like that of a typical nurse.

The 4 Virtues of a Patient-Centered Care System

Respecting the needs and preferences of a patient is the idea behind every patient-centered care system. Unlike in a normal patient-hospital relationship, patient care aims to treat their patients pro-actively. It was born out of championing health care issues, as well as in having safer medical means for the sick.

Since much of what goes on during diagnosis is still suspect even to the practitioners themselves, and that need of having a full engagement with their patients, patient care was then established.

It is basically going beyond the conventions of assisting their patients with proper diagnosis and treatment. These medical outlets are out to guide patients and provide them with a more personal treatment with their illnesses. Patient care has four inherent virtues, “whole-person” care, communication, support and sustenance and ready access. With these four virtues,a patient could be assured of a medical care for life.

Taking Care of the Person as a Whole
Oftentimes, a minor ailment could have its direct effect towards the entire body. Treating these patients from head to foot, so to speak, could lead to a more complete healing, not just treating a part of it.

Only Connect
Having a sort of bond towards a patient has its own advantages. If you can extend not just your expertise as a medical practitioner but also your time with them, you are somehow improving the quality of their lives also.

Support System
Inculcating a system of camaraderie like supporting each patient with his or her needs could go a long way as far as healing goes. This will make things easy for them while they recuperate.

Always Ready
Practitioners are always there, on the go, ready to perform their duties with care. Being available to their patients always is of utmost interest in the field of patient care.

Physician Efficiency vs. Patient Involvement in Patient Care

Having to go through a medical process can really be a frustrating experience especially when the patient is left unknowing about it. But how much does a patient want to know about and be involved in their own care? The response to this question cannot be fully relied on a single answer simply because many personalities and emotional complexities are involved when it comes to patient care.

Doctors like to simplify issues into neat categories, each of which have a clear management plan. This, however, is not necessarily applicable in patient care especially when it involves different personalities and emotions. One cannot simply eliminate the feelings of patients especially when satisfaction of the care they receive is involved.

In this case, the battle between increased physician efficiency through well-planned medical processes and better healthcare understanding buy the patient is the dilemma. Which of the two is best for patient care? There is reasonable argument for both.

A well thought of medical plan can be beneficial to an extent. There are physicians that prefer to spend their day practicing in a world of medical fact and deductive reasoning without taking into consideration patient reaction. The more practice, the less the mistakes are. But it can be argued that higher efficiency does not represent the rate at which patients are satisfied customers.

On the patient side, the ability of the medical team to involve them in their own care and make them aware of the plan lessen the patient’s frustrations with treatment. Doctors that are well-loved by their patients are those who spend time with them, to answer questions and provide a picture of what the coming days and weeks might look like. However, it can be argued that most of the questions can be answered not necessarily by the doctors themselves but by a less senior and equally able medical practitioners working for the admitting service.

Both have valid arguments and probably the best patient care in one that involves both as well.

Technology: A Blessing and Curse to Patient Care

The combination of knowledge, experience, and skills are needed for nurses to meet the changing needs of their patients. A large demand of patient care and safety is based on the work of nurses. When care is sub par, because of certain inappropriate situations, nurses shoulder the responsibility. Having an understanding and engagement of strategies to improve quality of care and safety is paramount to a nurse’s work.

A lot of factors affect the quality and safety of care provided by nurses such as environment, organizations, and systems. When teams function well and organization structures support their work, nurses are able to perform their job better with a high intensity of care.

In the past, nurses relied heavily on their senses to monitor their patients and look for changes. As time passed, inaccurate use of senses were replaced with precision-based technologies designed to detect changes to patient’s conditions. Over time, technology has become extremely helpful tot the nursing career.

While technology has potentially improved patient care and safety, it is not without risks. Technology has been accounted for bringing a solution and added problems for safer health care. Problems may rise based on the sheer number of new devices, the complexity and careless introduction in using them.

Although billions and billions of dollars have been spent every year on medical devices and equipment, nurses has paid little attention to technological implementation and integration.

Technology also has introduced many errors and unintended mistakes. For instance the use of bar code system. Many believe that the bar coding medication administration reduces the medication errors, it was also believed to decreased physician’s ability to accurately deviate routine administration sequences.

Another disadvantage of using technology is the associated expenditure. Not all hospitals can afford high-end equipments and devices. That is why more development is needed to more effectively introduce new technologies, reducing the risk to the patient care, and stress on nurses.

Certified Patient Care Technician

The Certified Patient Care Technician assists nurses, doctors and other healthcare professionals in providing direct patient care in a variety of health care environments. As a CPCT, you may carry out different tasks as assigned by the healthcare management. One of your responsibilities is to provide a basic patient care including bathing, feeding, and assisting patients to the ambulance. They are also assigned to acquire and distribute patient care supplies. Change bed linens and process dirty linens properly. You can perform safety checks to keep patient rooms clean, maintain clear paths in hallways and return equipments that are no longer in use. You might not be as big as nurses and doctors, but are necessary to make the procedures move swiftly.

Patient care technicians, also known as nursing assistants or nurse aides, perform basic care procedures in clinics and hospitals homes. Their duties include monitoring patients, drawing blood, checking vital signs, and conducting electrocardiograms, in addition to assisting patients with bathing, feeding and transporting. Some formal education is required. Clinical training as well as state certification is generally needed to work as a patient care technician. You need to have a high school diploma before pursuing a profession as a patient care technician. The majority of the employers look for candidates who have completed a patient care technician certificate program and are state certified; on the other hand, some companies will sign up students presently signed up for patient care technician certificate programs and have completed a training program offered through a hospital, an elderly care facility or technical center.

Hospital training programs generally last 2-3 months and mix classroom instruction and hands-on training. Some hospital training programs may be available to high school students that are then prepared to enter the work force upon graduation; others require previous experience as a nursing aide. For all those looking to complete a formal training course, there are many community and technical colleges that offer patient care technician certificate programs. Most programs take one year or less to accomplish and will make preparations for students to take a state certification exam; some programs require applicants to carry a CPR or EMT certification before they apply.

The National Healthcareer Association (NHA) grants clinical certification for patient care technicians, associates and nurse technicians. Completing particular training programs and experience is needed for you to go ahead and take a national certifying examination. Though certification is optional, some states require certification to ensure that patient care technicians are prepared to operate in a specific environment, like nursing homes or hospitals.

Technological innovation has become an important part of the nursing career and patient care. However, in many circumstances, it has also become an annoying one. Take, for example, electronic medical records (EMR). As more and more hospitals turn from paper charts to EMRs to get to know a patient’s history, medical staffs have to evolve to this new, technologically-driven method of charting. Yet, many nurses do not get sufficient training and education, making them exacerbated of know-how and not really prepared to use it successfully. The truth is that, with the right knowledge and the right resources, nurses can use technology to improve patient results in patient care and their own professions. Here are some illustrations of how you can use technology to your advantage:

It provides straightforward access to patient information. – When nurses think about EMR systems, they often concentrate on the disadvantages, such as the plenty of screens to check and the limitless displays they have to surf through. However, EMRs really can save your time by offering accessibility patient lab results, history, physical information and notes all in one location. Obtaining this data via paper charts could take hours, but with an EMR, it’s all at your convenience.

It helps provide precise medicines. – Every health professional knows about the five privileges of medication management. However, many nurses also know first-hand how challenging it can be to document each step on paper. Luckily, with EMRs, precise medication information is always available and up-dates can be recorded with convenience. You can also quickly access allergic reaction backgrounds and medication information and see how the medication will communicate with other medicines. As a result, you can ensure that the right medication is going to the right sufferers.

It enables you to research illnesses and diseases. – Every day, you care for sufferers being affected by an ever-changing variety of conditions. It’s challenging, if not difficult, to know everything about every illness process. However, it is simple to learn. Internet sources such as UpToDate.com, an evidence-based, physician-authored medical data source, can give you information you need to cure diseases that you don’t regularly experience.