Ericka Waidley
Linfield College-Good Samaritan School of Nursing, USA
Title: Patient’s Perceptions of the Nurse’s use of Technology in Care Delivery
Biography
Biography: Ericka Waidley
Abstract
The impact of the use of technology on patient care has been a focus of the healthcare industry for many years. Recognizing the impact of technology on nursing practice and how this affects the nurse’s engagement with patients is a significant challenge for the future of nursing education and professional development. Teaching and incorporating competencies such as transpersonal caring and patient engagement will continue to be a challenge as the evolution of technology continues at warp speed.
During the past decade, our health system has become increasingly complex. Most of this complexity has evolved from the implementation of health information technology and the use of increasingly high tech equipment in patient care. It is a fine line between the use of those technologies that are considered by patients to be for clinical necessity and those technologies that are perceived by patients to be for nursing convenience and/or economics that is at issue.
There has been an abundance of research and literature that addresses the impact of technology on the nurse’s role, much of which implies or provides evidence that the effect of technology is dehumanizing care delivery. However, the majority of this research has been on the impact on the nurse with little focus on the patients’ perceptions of the high tech environment. This study provides information that will be crucial to the education of nurses and providers in the future.