Change Proposal
Change Proposal
Change Proposal
Technology has been credited for making patient environments safer.
Create a change proposal for a new technology that will help to make the patient environment safer.
Investigate human variables such as reluctance to change in the expanding use of informatics.
Include how your proposed change will affect patient safety, how you will measure its impact, and how you will communicate and implement it.
Submissions Specifics:
Send your response in the form of a 3- to 5-page Microsoft Word document.
Please save your work as SU NSG3039 W2 Project LastName FirstInitial.doc.
Please submit your work to the Submissions Area by the deadline.
On a separate page, cite sources in APA format.
The general public feels that technology will increase the efficiency, quality, safety, and cost of health care.
Few individuals, however, recognize that these same technologies may introduce errors and bad events.
1 Given that approximately 5,000 different types of medical devices are utilized by millions of health care practitioners worldwide, device-related issues are unavoidable.
2
While technology holds a lot of promise, the benefits of a specific technology may not be realized due to four common pitfalls: (1) poor technology design that does not adhere to human factors and ergonomic principles,3 (2) poor technology interface with the patient or environment,3 (3) insufficient plan for implementing a new technology into practice, and (4) insufficient maintenance plan.4
Patient care technology has gotten more complex, altering the way nursing care is conceptualized and delivered.
Prior to the widespread use of technology, nurses relied significantly on their senses of sight, touch, smell, and hearing to monitor and detect changes in patient status.
Over time, equipment meant to detect physical changes in patient circumstances replaced the nurses unaided senses.
5
Take, for example, pulse oxymetry.
Before it was widely used, nurses relied on minor changes in mental status and skin color to detect early changes in oxygen saturation, and arterial blood gasses were used to corroborate their suspicions.
Now, pulse oximetry allows nurses to detect low oxygenation levels before clinical symptoms manifest, allowing them to more quickly diagnose and treat underlying causes.
While technology has the potential to improve healthcare, it does not come without risks.
Technology has been described as both a problem and a solution for safer health care, with some observers warning of the introduction of yet-to-be faults following the use of new technologies.
6
Nurses and other health care personnel, for example, may be so focused on data from monitors that they fail to catch potentially significant minor changes in clinical condition.
The sheer volume of new devices, the complexity of the devices, the inadequate interaction between numerous technologies at the bedside, and the haphazard introduction of additional gadgets at the bedside may all lead to problems.
Despite spending billions of dollars each year on an ever-expanding array of medical devices and equipment, the nursing profession has paid little attention to technology adoption and integration with other components of the health care environment.
Nurses are interested in a wide range of patient care technologies, from very simple devices like catheters and syringes to highly complicated devices like barcode drug administration systems and electronic health records.
7
Technology can be widely defined to encompass clinical procedures and other paper-based tools, but for the purposes of this chapter, we will concentrate on the equipment and devices that nurses are likely to meet when providing direct care to patients.
This chapters goal is to give a conceptual model for technologies that nurses are likely to encounter and to outline techniques for promoting their effective and safe usage.
