Question

• What role does current information management technology play in preparing nurses for clinical practice in the twenty-first century? Explain why.
• What effect does future healthcare delivery have on vulnerable populations? Include at least two examples from the field of nursing? Specifically maternal health?

Answer 1

The healthcare technology, today is moving at a rapid pace, so nurses have to stay sharp to keep up. Innovations like remote monitoring devices and high tech patient simulators are becoming common in hospitals, as electronic health record systems. Each facility has different types and levels of technology, it’s important for nurses to be adaptable when it comes to learning new systems and equipment. Electronic communication through apps and hospital paging communication tools enable nurses to respond more efficiently to patient needs. These innovative methods can improve life for nurses, enabling team collaboration and providing immediate access to critical patient information.

An overall increase in access to technology is the most important trends nurses can already see in their practice. There is increased use of portable and mobile technology, as well as an emphasis on telemedicine in rural or underserved areas. With the rise of electronic health records, hospitals and physicians offices are keeping track of patient information digitally. This can make patient data easier to share and improve outcomes.

Facilities like ambulatory surgery centers and retail clinics are serving patients outside of the hospital setting, with healthcare moving out into the community, nurses have the opportunity to use their skills in new ways.

Preventive care is another trend. Both the medical community and insurance providers are interested in encouraging patients to live healthier lifestyles that prevent health issues from arising. This means that nurses will see an increase in demand for well care and coordination with other healthcare professionals. Patient interactions are evolving as well, and much of this is due to demographic shifts, increased access to healthcare services and better consumer education.

In near future, more than 20 percent of the American population will be over the age of 65. Adults over the age of 85 are the fastest growing age group overall. As people age, they have a greater need for healthcare services. This, increases the demand for nurses who are trained in gerontology and aging patient care. The capacity of the health care delivery system better serves the population in terms of cultural competence, quality, the workforce, financing, information technology, and emergency preparedness. The responsibility of the health care system to recognize and play its role within the intersectoral public health system, particularly as it collaborates with the governmental public health agencies.

The responsibility for providing some level of basic health care services to the poor and other special populations falls to governmental public health agencies as one of their essential public health services, this default is already occurring, consuming resources and impairing the ability of governmental public health agencies to perform essential tasks. This committee was not constituted to investigate, make recommendations regarding the serious economic and structural problems confronting the health care system. It concluded that it must examine certain issues having serious implications for the public health system's effectiveness in promoting the nation's health.

Drawing heavily on the work of committees, it examines the influence that health insurance exerts on access to health care and on the range of care available, the shortcomings in the quality of services provided, some of the constraints on the capacity of the health care system to provide high quality care, and the need for better collaboration within the public health system, especially among governmental public health agencies and the organizations in the personal health care delivery system.

The main areas in the health care delivery system and the governmental public health agencies trend to interface. These areas include the regulatory and quality monitoring functions performed by agencies, disease surveillance and reporting by health care providers, and the provision of safety net services. It is a function of public health, public health agencies do more that assure the people, can access health care services, public health departments may become providers of resort in areas where no other services are available for low income, uninsured populations. These circumstances force public health departments to provide personal health care services instead of using their resources and population level to guide and support community efforts to change the conditions for health.