Impact of Continued Nursing Informatics and Technology Development 

Impact of Continued Nursing Informatics and Technology Development 

The continued emergence of new technologies within healthcare will have an immense impact on professional interactions. For the purpose of this discussion, professional interactions are interactions between colleagues or interactions between health staff and their patients. In the future, electronic health systems will become more data intensive, but also more user-friendly. Some experts hypothesize that eventually, clinicians will be able to plug patient data into health technology systems, then those systems will produce the most likely diagnoses and patient interventions (Laurate Education, 2018). 

While these systems will not replace the role of doctors and nurses, they will cause the clinician to spend more time using technology. As a result, this author foresees two important outcomes. First, clinicians will need to become more tech-savvy, and nursing informatics will play a more prominent role in health facilities. Staff interactions with NI specialists will become more commonplace, and nurse informaticists will need to develop and hone project management skills to successfully guide this transition (Sipes, 2016). At hospitals, a nurse informaticist might be on-call around the clock for support and problem-solving. A second impact that the emergence of new technologies may have on professional interactions is related to the art of caring. The art of caring refers to a caregiver’s intentional promotion of recovery and wellness and recognition of inherent personal value and feelings of connectedness (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2018, Chapter 25). Nursing’s core values are rooted in caring for the health and wellbeing of others. Nursing care must not become dehumanized; it is essential personal interactions such as touch, intentional listening, therapeutic communication, and mindfulness are not removed from this profession. More training may be needed to help caregivers balance the ever-evolving use of technology at the bedside without losing the personal touches and expressions of connectedness that are the building blocks of this profession. 

References 

Laureate Education (Producer). (2018). Health informatics and population health: Trends in population health [Video file]. Walden University Blackboard Nurs6051. https://class.content.laureate.net/f5055760e0020de1c3cc4b123b669695.html#section_container_20 

McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. (2017). Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge (4th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning. 

Mosier, S., Roberts, W. D., & Englebright, J. (2019). A systems-level method for developing nursing informatics solutions: The role of executive leadership. The Journal of Nursing Administration, 49(11), 543-548. https://doi.org/10.1097/NNA.0000000000000815.