My thoughts on Technology in Nursing and Education- Blog #10

When reminiscing about my experience in the nursing program for this past semester and thinking specifically about the impact of technology, it helps me see that nursing education has evolved into cirricula that almost require technology nowadays. A majority of my research is found on the internet, my papers are conveniently typed on my laptop and I keep up with the array of assignments we have due because of Discovery's convenient calendar. I can imagine a more simple, basic time when technology was not incorporated into everyday life, but frankly I am relieved I do not live in that time. I consider technology to significantly enhance my education. Technology allows a broad spectrum of information to be shared and made accesible almost immediately. As far as nursing goes, I can see how technology has made everything more convenient and accurate in the realm of nursing care. The computer acts as a doublecheck for medication administration and errors will appear if any of the five rights are not correct via the system. Technology allows faster communication between the diagnostic labs and nurses, so that nurses can be updated when necessary on their patient's lab values to see if any of them are low or critical. In this way, nursing interventions (i.e- calling a doctor and informing them of a critical potassium level, allowing the doctor to order a Kcl IV solution) are sped up. Technology's role in nursing has become very broad; everything from continuosly monitoring a patient's O2 sat with a pulse oximeter, to adusting the patient's position on their electronic hospital bed, to calling/emailing the doctor with an inquiry to charting and printing up essential discharge forms. I feel like technology has allowed an accuracy check in most tasks nurses complete in the day, and in a lot of ways saves time so that more tasks can be completed.
Nursing is a profession which seems to always be developing in its practices and technology is one area which seems to evolving as well, so to incorporate technology into nursing care seems like it can only enhance the care we give.