Trends In Nursing Case Study

Hi Dr. Spooner and class,

List four technologies currently employed in health care that the nurse could utilize in the clinical practice. Describe how these technologies have changed the current practice setting.

Four technologies that I chose to discuss here include telehealth, tablet technology, social media, and patient portals. Telehealth is a rising area of care management. Telenursing is a component of telehealth. Nurses provide telecommunications and information technology when a large physical distance exists between a patient and a nurse. Telenursing has been defined as the delivery, management and coordination of care and services provided via information and telecommunication technologies (Kuriakose, 2011). I currently work as a

telephonic care manager at Humana. All my members are from New York and New Jersey. Communicating with them over a phone helps the members learn how to manage their own health. The study showed that the telephonic care management team at Humana has decreased more than fifty percent of hospital readmission last year, and the team continues to expand this year.
In addition to the telehealth, tablet use has become popular over the past a few years in the clinical practice. A tablet is a wireless, portable personal computer with a touchscreen interface. Many health care professionals investigate the viability of using tablet technology in the health care setting for activities from electronic health record documentation (Brusco, 2011). Nurses can access reports and medical records over a tablet. They also can bring the tablets to patients’ rooms to facility the care. Uploading would photos to the wound care report and completing reports and documentation are examples of activities that tablets can assist with.
Furthermore, utilizing social media is another way of showing the improvement of technology in health care setting.

Although social media have not become popular yet, the numbers of users are increasing. Humana is promoting the internal social media use, which is called Humana Point of Care (HPOC), which functions like other social media such as Facebook and Twitter. However, the HPOC is more private than other social media. The purpose of using the HPOC is to promote members’ health and care management. The members can invite anyone to their HPOCs. The person who is invited to the HPOC can share information with the member. For example, if the member invites his or her registered nurse to the HPOC to facilitate care management, the nurse can share articles that will benefit the

member.
The last, many hospitals and facilities have used patient portals to share personal health records (PHRs).

Sharing the personal health records with patients has the potential to improve the safety of medication prescribing and trending of physiologic data (e.g. blood pressure, clotting times, blood glucose, and daily weights). Patient portals can serve as personal health records in which health information is preserved over time (Gephart & Effken, 2013). Humana provides great features of patient portal for their members. The patient portal can be viewed on a computer, a smart phone, and a tablet. The members can utilize the portal to order and search medication, find physicians, view existing claims and benefits, and submit requested documents. Using the patient portal makes the members to monitor and manage their health easier than

ever.
Provide examples of three ways this technology can transform the nursing practice and are essential for safe patient care.
Using telenursing, tablets, social media, and patient portal is on a rise. The technology can transform nursing practice for safe patient care in three ways: accountability, confidentiality, and liability. Legal issues are still largely unsolved and difficult to address. First, technology users are accountable for any activities that are performed on a computer, a phone, or a tablet. It is the users’ responsibility to ensure the safety of using the technology that is involved in personal health information. Protecting the personal health information is an action of confidentiality. Depending on the type of activity and amount of security required will vary. If a registered nurse provides services over the Internet or via emails, security is of utmost concern. The use of security certificates on websites is also encouraged to provide authentication to users. In addition to the accountability and confidentiality, liability is another way to transform the nursing practice for safe patient care. The first line of liability protection for a registered nurse is usually provided by an employer. Nurses are encouraged to discuss liability issues with their employers and legal counsel.