Current Information and Communication Technologies

With so much attention focused on health care reform, it is important that nurses be given the opportunity to use high-quality technology tools. These tools can increase access to vital medical information, promote effective communication among health care professionals, and improve the patient experience. By actively seeking out and adopting these tools, nurses can greatly enhance the quality and safety of care that they provide.

This Discussion focuses on identifying quality technology tools that increase the ability of nurses to provide safe, effective care.

To prepare:

• Review the various technology tools described in this week’s Learning Resources.
• Identify a recently adopted information, education, or communication technology tool in your specialty area. Reflect on how it is used and how its use impacts the quality of care.
• Consider how your identified technology tool might impact nursing practice if it were more widely used. What are some barriers preventing increased usage? How could wider implementation be facilitated?

Post on or before Day 3 a description of a current or new information, education, or communication technology tool that is being used in your specialty area and assess its impact on the quality of care. Highlight the effect that increased use of this technology would have on nursing practice and discuss the barriers that are slowing or hindering its adoption. Summarize how adoption of the technology tool could be facilitated.

Readings

• American Nurses Association. (2015). Nursing informatics: Scope & standards of practice (2nd ed.).Silver Springs, MD: Author.
  • “The Future of Nursing Informatics”
• McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. G. (2012). Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge (Laureate Education, Inc., custom ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
  • Chapter 14, “Improving the Human-Technology Interface”

    This chapter describes the human-technology interface and explores some of the problems that result from its usage. The author also reflects on methods for improving the interface.

  • Chapter 19, ”Telenursing and Remote Access Telehealth”

    This chapter explores the usage of telehealth in nursing practice. The authors examine the role of telehealth, along with potential issues that may arise in its usage.

• Brewer, E. P. (2011). Successful techniques for using human patient simulation in nursing education. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 43(3), 311–317.
  Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.

  This article identifies studies that have used human simulation as an effective instructional tool in nursing education. The article describes different strategies for incorporating human simulation into nursing education, and it also offers insight on improvements that could be made to current practices.

• Guarascio-Howard, L. (2011). Examination of wireless technology to improve nurse communication, response time to bed alarms, and patient safety. Herd, 4(2), 109–120.
  Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.

  The author explains the results of a study on the outcomes of using wireless communication devices to improve patient safety by allowing nurses to communicate more quickly and easily with other nurses. The results indicate that this technology can increase the value of team nursing, improve response time, and increase patient safety, although there are some drawbacks and challenges associated with the devices.

• Simpson, R. L. (2012). Technology enables value-based nursing care. Nursing Administration Quarterly, 36(1), 85–87.
  Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.

  This article describes how technology can be used to address problems in the U.S. health care system, such as lack of consistency and lack of effective treatment. The article explains the use of value-based care initiatives and outlines how nurses can use these initiatives to improve outcomes in treatment and research.

• Vinson, M. H., McCallum, R., Thornlow, D. K., & Champagne, M. T. (2011). Design, implementation, and evaluation of population-specific telehealth nursing services. Nursing Economic$, 29(5), 265–272, 277.
  Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.

  Telehealth is defined as health services that integrate electronic information and telecommunications to improve health care access, outcomes, and costs. This article describes how a telehealth implementation project was designed, enacted, and evaluated, and it analyzes the results of that project.

Media

• Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2012c). Health care technologies. Baltimore, MD: Author.

  Note: The approximate length of this media piece is 13 minutes.

  This video features Katie Skelton, Doris Fischer, Carina Perez, Shannon Mori, Carmen Ferrell, and Lynn Tamanaha as they discuss current technologies and innovations in health care. They also describe a specific bed management-system that has improved their hospitals’ efficiency.

Please proceed to the Discussion.