|
It's always good to see nurses -- those often unsung "grunts" of healthcare -- get the spotlight they deserve, and particularly when it comes to their views of technology. After all, they are the people who have to put the stuff to use to help patients, so you would expect them to have pertinent knowledge.
That's something that is often overlooked in the sometimes overheated hype surrounding health IT. Marvelous though the technology sometimes seems, if it isn't useful on the ground in treating and helping patients then it just ain't no good.
The value that nurses bring to the table where this is concerned came to mind yet again with the story about Lisa Lundgren getting the Public health Service's chief nurse officer award. She both studies the effects of technology and has obviously worked with it, and she sees it as a double-edged sword.
IT that helps spread medical information is of obvious value, she says, but only if that information can be trusted.
“The challenge is really being able to identify whether the source of the information is valid,†Lundgren said. “People believe in the power of the CDC logo, for example. My concern is that [technology] tools can be potentially very successful. But there’s the downside — how do you communicate to people that this really is a valid source?†It was only recently that the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, conducted by the very Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that Lundgren is involved with through her work as a Northrop Grumman analyst, included nurses. That could lead to the views of nurses and other midlevel health care professionals finally having input into how health IT products are designed.
Northrop Grumman, by the way, views Lundgren as a "trusted integrator" of advanced health solutions.
Beth Ann Swan, associate director of the Office of International Programs for the School of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania and president of the American Academy of Ambulatory Care Nursing, pointed out in a recent article in GHIT, that very few electronic medical records up to now have used nursing language. They just "don't incorporate the kind of documentation that nurses use or take account of their interventions " in the health care deliver process, she said.
If the rewards of health IT are ever to be realized it requires the input of everyone involved in the healthcare process. Talk just to the physicians and the senior elite and chances are you will get something that's neither as capable as people want or as immediately useful.
By Brian Robinson, GHIT Contributing Writer
|
 |
|
There are currently no comments to display.
|
|
|
|
To post a comment you must be a registered user of GOVHEALTHIT.com and be logged in. Use one of the forms below to login or register for FREE to GOVHEALTHIT.com
|
|
|
|
