Technology has indeed played a very large role in our society. Even hospitals and health care facilities are not spared with this phenomenon. In order to promote patient welfare and safety, technology also plays a large part in our duties as a nursing professional.
Gone are the days when patients’ documents are only done on paper. Now there are already EHR or Electronic Health Records where all the literature about a patient is stored and filed. In a society that promotes paperless transactions the same goes to the records of the patients.
There are many discouraging news about the usage of EHRs so far. There are duplicated forms or files are simply lost in the system. Since this is a new way for medical care facilities to handle patient records, it is not surprising at all. On a more positive note, they also are bent on making big improvements so that problems encountered would be minimized or totally erased for the future.
Nursing professionals can play a big role in this evolution. Nurses are not just about advocating health but they also have to learn how to translate and explain this through the use of technology. Hence, the emerging trend right now in the nursing profession is to encourage nurses to work closely with the ITs so that they can better improve the record system.
This means that more and more nurses will have to add computer training to their already extensive nursing program. This has become necessary so that they will have the ability to understand and operate successful the electronic health records system.
This is a new career opportunity in a market or industry that has been slowly being saturated due to the big number of graduates every year. If new options are available to nurses then it can be a blessing because it will serve as an opportunity to make sure that they still practice their profession albeit in a totally different perspective.
Managing the electronic health records can make the career growth quicker and may develop a curve for them to move forward and gain new experience not just in terms of medical knowledge.
New technologies cannot be postponed or curtailed. It can hurtle as fast as a bullet train. All the health professionals have to do is to face it and adjust to the needs of the time. They are needed for the future development of the nursing industry in the technological times.