Tag: Technology

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.

Value of Technology in Nursing Education

Solutions for an improved nursing education include increased use of online learning, college tuition settlement, versatile scheduling and end of the week classes. For example, the MSN program at Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital in Palo Alto, CA, provides college tuition reimbursement; onsite master’s and bachelor’s degree programs and a work-life balance office. Reconcile nursing education with compensation and marketing possibilities. Health professional incomes vary according to state, job title, work setting, and number of service beds, service type and level of unionization, according to the 2012 wage survey information from Advance for Nurses.

For example, in the South, nurses with a BSN make an average of $61,956 yearly, while those with an MSN make $77,370 yearly. Nursing staff are entitled to know the value to train and learn and extra technology training by hearing genuine reviews on career routes, marketing possibilities and wage development. Sell the C-suite and opinion management on the value of highly knowledgeable and technically smart nurses. CNOs in particular, can play an important part in positioning nurses as knowledgeable professionals who help enhance quality and safety, build a lifestyle of quality and responsibility, and offer low-cost, easy-access primary care through newly created models, according to the 2013 American Hospital Association Environmental Scan.

To accommodate the estimated nursing shortage, every school of nursing must make more students ready to take the NCLEX licensure exam. However, to ensure that nurses continue their education and learning after achieving initial licensure, requirements for further education and learning must be clear, simple to get around, rather than appearing a hurdle to the nurse’s future course work. For example, ADNN prepared nurses who join BSN programs often describe architectural limitations to further education and learning. The variety of requirements and general education and learning programs in both general and nursing education often require students to complete more programs than they expect. To deal with these issues, individual associate degree and baccalaureate nursing programs are integrating to standardize specifications through articulation agreements or dual enrollment programs. The new requirements must deal with the importance of training nurses in electronic medical records (EMRs) and information research using informatics that can be used to help enhance care synchronization.

Senior Care and Technology

Hitting into an approximated $7 billion baby boomer spending potential, big businesses are focusing on technological innovation as it pertains to senior care and aging in place, writes USA Today. That technological innovation varies from supporting or changing the diminishing number of care providers comparative to those who depend on them, to distribution of medicine and smart houses that are prepared with receptors and other tracking devices and they are focusing on the aging inhabitants in groups.

Increasingly seen as a safety net for older parents and family members, electronic receptors and other home-based gadgets are giving satisfaction to family members of the aging inhabitants. This “technological trend of international significance” is offering alternatives from medicine management to safety and interaction and is increasing the ability for senior citizens in America to age in their houses. “Imagine bottle caps that shine when it’s time to take medicine, seats that take your vital signs and even carpeting that evaluate walking styles and predict physical damage and psychological infirmity. All are here or coming soon and will be a benefit to the country’s 78 million Baby Boomers, those born from 1946 to 1964, who are experiencing the possibilities of getting old with a reducing population of care providers.”

The technological innovation benefits those who use it, as well as the community in general, as a care provider shortage is approximated to match with the population of child boomers reaching their 70s and 80s. But difficulties are plentiful, too, with different gadgets and technological innovation current on a single platform, as well as the worry associated with tracking people in their houses, the article notes. Medical care and aging technology for senior care, however, is a big business and those who are creating alternatives now are on the cutting edge of what will amount to a large pattern later on. That includes technical leaders from Intel-GE to Qualcomm and many others that are in the field currently, or have programs to get into in the near term.

Improving Patient Care with Technology

Citizens at the Kane Regional Centers will soon have a new friend in the physician’s office: “Telly,” a tele-presence digi-cam rig that can connect to a remote doctor and gather healthcare details during exams. The rig is part of a UPMC-run program called RAVEN or Initiative to Reduce Avoidable Hospitalizations Using evidence-based Interventions for Nursing Facilities in Western Pennsylvania, which is financed by a $19 million grant from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

“Bringing tele-medicine to the Kane Centers will enhance the speed and performance of patient care with which residents receive healthcare consultations when there is a change in their health,” Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said. “It will also slow up the need to transport residents to a medical center or E.R., which is difficult for some of them.” “Telly” will not substitute doctors, who will still perform routine exams. It’ll only be used when an individual’s condition changes, along with a shift in breathing, heart function or pain. The robot-like rig will be monitored by physicians and can examine the eyes, ears, nasal area, neck, respiratory system, heart, stomach, skin, arms and legs and neurological system.

The rig looks like a pc monitor on wheels with a digi-cam secured on top. It comes equipped with tools like a wireless stethoscope, which can pass on details to a doctor at another location. Close relatives will be able to listen in via PC and telephone. “We recognize that a patient’s doctor or health professional specialist is sometimes not available at the skilled nursing facility to assess and treat the citizen when there is a change in their usual health,” Kane Executive Director Dennis Biondo said. “The goal is to provide ongoing access to high-quality patient care and health-care professionals.”

Effects of Technology on Patient Care

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.

Technology and Senior Care

Technological innovation has already made waves in senior care through the use smart-sensor systems that can observe residents’ motions, nearly removing the need for a room-by-room check in the morning. Eight in ten assisted living residents need help handling their medicine, according to the National Center for Assisted Living, and medicine management is placed to be the next focus for time saving performance through a new technology coming to market: digital pills. But that is not all they can do. Imagine a regular day in a senior care setting. Care providers visit the bedrooms of all citizens who get medicine. They provide the medicines and then wait around several minutes for each resident to take them, one by one, guaranteeing the amounts are not neglected or lost.

But what if the care provider simply left the daily amount and move along to the next resident, not having to worry about awaiting each individual to take each pill? Enter: digital pills. The development was released by Proteus Digital Health and obtained U.S. Food and Drug Administration acceptance last July 2012. The technologies are now being promoted for at-home use in Britain and will be getting in U.S. medical centers later this year, which could have wide significances for senior care. “Our electronic health reviews program is designed to help individuals better handle their care each and every day,” says David O’Reilly, primary product official. “Whether it nudges to help individuals keep on track with their schedule or better advised caregivers and physicians, the program will provide significant benefit to those who are suffering from way of life changes as a result of getting older.”

The digital pill works as part of a system to monitor and observe a person’s consumption of medicine as well as vital symptoms and activity. On standard, seniors use five to six prescriptions, according to a 2007 study released in the Journal of Internal Medicine. The digital pill has the ability of being integrated into medicine themselves, or being taken as a placebo pill along with medicine. Once digestive function starts, the pill, which contains an electronic indicator about the size of a grain of sand, goes to work. It sends data through a wearable patch, via Bluetooth straight to a family member’s or caregiver’s mobile phone or computer, allowing that individual to know the medicine has been taken, whether the individual is up and about, and even health alerts.

The New Era of Healthcare

For many physicians, I believe the latest difficulties around the market have taken some of the fun out of their work. Problems such as new and modifying rules, improved legal cases, growing costs, and hardly controllable patient loads, among others, have all taken their cost on the physicians, nursing staff, and directors who, I believe, joined the healthcare field to have a fulfilling, long term profession providing individuals and assisting them live better lives. This scenario provides a real problem for basically everyone lucky enough to have access to contemporary healthcare. Population development and ageing communities in many nations around the world mean we need more physicians, not less. More happy, more effective physicians and nursing staff mean better care for their sufferers. And, individuals who devote decades of their lives to practice medicine should have a fulfilling experience.

For physicians, there is great news; you are at the edge of a rebirth in healthcare. Technology, including the Internet of Everything (IoE), robotics, 3-D printing, wearable technological innovation, reasoning, flexibility, and many others, promises to guide in this new era in medical care. In short, the best is yet to come. To prove the point, here are a couple of illustrations that should change medical care over the next 10 years.

Scaling skills to extend quality care: One of the difficulties of healthcare these days is that skills are often included in a set place or individual person. For example, a physician who has become an expert in doing a complicated, life-saving function can be in only one place at a time. Later on, the mixture of video clip, robotics, sensing, action identification, and IoE will allow physicians to execute functions at exclusively prepared, distant places.

Your sufferers…only better: Innovations in 3-D printing are developing realistic-looking, comfort and ease appropriate and efficient ears for sufferers. The ears are designed by treating (like an ink jet printer) living tissues into a hypodermic injection pattern. In just three months, each ear develops fibers in the form of the pattern. While technology will play a critical role in changing healthcare, real and long lasting change will come from people who have the interest to matter.

Patient Care and Technology

Today, suppliers can no longer go to work with a stethoscope and their well-trained mind and hands. In a medical center or a workplace, few of us need a black leather bag. But we do need information, and in methods we never experienced in our training. Technological innovation is fast changing how we approach patient care. Decision support tools are still in their beginnings. Within a very short time, I believe we will be using technology to help us improve the patient care methods we have not yet fully considered. There are two dimensions of technology that I believe will considerably improve patient care and the connection with our sufferers.

First, bedroom diagnostics, ultrasound evaluation has quickly become the standard of proper care for experts to place lines. Now, convenient ultrasound is available for the bedside physical evaluation. Most doctors currently usually spend most of their time on worldwide medical volunteer missions. They have a convenient ultrasound that is only a little bit larger than the normal smartphone. The sensor / probe looks like a tiny flash light. In towns in remote Nepal, they are able to ultrasound sufferers to help identify serious diseases that may require transportation to tertiary care organizations. As internet and mobile cell phone availability enhances throughout the world, there are places where they can deliver the pictures to radiologists in the United States to assist with decoding and making an analysis. I think the normal doctor in western world will soon carry a pocket ultrasound for use throughout the day, whether hospital or office-based.

Second are the incredible opportunities to use mobile phone technology to enhance the care of chronic diseases. The concept of “crowd sourcing” allows sufferers and their providers to share information that can considerably improve chronic illness. Ninety-one percent of people keep their smartphone within 3 feet of them 24 hours a day. An early experiment in patient care with inflammatory bowel illness has produced impressive improvements in the illness by tracking individuals’ activities through their mobile cell phone GPS and accelerometer and responses to scheduled text messages.

The Importance of Mathematics

Mathematics is king and master of sciences. Most of these days growth is depending on growth and enhancement of sciences but mathematics has always been a complicated topic for the undergraduate and common man. Our enhancement in the last few hundreds of years has made it necessary to apply statistical techniques to real-life issues of the world that comes up from different areas – be it Technology, Finance, bookkeeping etc. Mathematics make use of Arithmetic in fixing real-world issues and has now become increasingly useful especially due to the improving computational power of  computer systems and processing techniques, both of which have triggered the managing of long and complicated issues.

The procedure of simulation of a real-life problem into a statistical form or design can give remedy to certain issues with the help of representation. The procedure of interpretation is known as Modeling. The actions engaged in this procedure through are most important in statistical design. Mathematical design is a tool for knowing the world. The Chinese, Babylonians and Greeks, Indians, are efficient in knowing and forecasting the natural phenomena through their information and program of mathematics. The designers and artisans essentially centered many of their works of art on geometrical concepts, a division of mathematics.

Assume an individual wants to evaluate the size of a pole. It is actually very challenging to evaluate the size using the record of any type. So, the other choice is to find out the key elements that can be useful to find the size. By use of Mathematics, one can determine that if he has an angle of the structure and the range of the platform of the structure to the factor where he is present, then he can determine the size of the structure by information of different aspects. Math is a must for fixing complicated tasks making it clear and understandable.