Topic Description
The current healthcare setting represents a significant departure from past approaches, which were deemed as obsolete after improved methods of managing public health issues had been developed. However, the present-day healthcare context still needs improvements due to the inconsistency between the pace of technological development and the rate of critical skill development in nurses and healthcare practitioners (Cresswell et al., 2017). Therefore, solutions must be provided to ensure that healthcare staff members are capable of using innovative technology properly and meet patients’ needs accordingly.
Problem Description
The present-day healthcare environment has been suffering from nurses’ and healthcare practitioners’ inability to acquire relevant care skills at the needed pace. Studies indicate that the described issue has gained especially high urgency recently due to the rise in the development of the pandemic (COVID-19) (Ye et al., 2020). Therefore, training options for nurses and healthcare staff members must be provided.
Topic Significance
The urgency and significance of the topic under analysis is very high due to the rapid development of the COVID-19 pandemic and the increased need for the healthcare staff who can deliver critical services swiftly and professionally (De Leeuw et al., 2020). Without appropriate skills and the training sessions that help develop them, nurses will be unable to cope with the increasing workload. Therefore, the significance of the topic is very high given the circumstances. Moreover, the topic also bears importance when considered from the perspective of other public health issues, such as diabetes, which require the ability to use technology accurately and apply relevant knowledge and skills.
Purpose
The goal of this paper is to consider different ways in which education and, particularly, the development of essential skills for managing innovative technology and equipment, can be promoted in nurses and healthcare staff. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to establish strategies that could help nurses to gain the much needed skills for navigating the healthcare setting using IT and ICT communication tools, as well as innovative equipment introduced for diagnosing and treating health problems.
Potential Solutions
Training Options
Building training opportunities for nurses and healthcare staff members is the first and the vital step in the promotion of IT and ICT advancements in healthcare. Due to the lack of opportunities for building a skill set for handling innovative equipment in the workplace, nurses often fail to deliver high-quality services in the hospital context within the allotted time (De Leeuw et al., 2020). As a result, the quality of care drops substantially. For this reason, introducing training courses with the help of which nurses will be able to build the needed skillset and ensure that they become automatic by the time that nurses enter the healthcare setting and start tending to patients’ needs.
Specifically, the training process will include key information concerning the functioning of the IT and ICT tools deployed in the healthcare context, as well as the steps for applying them to manage patients’ data and the interdisciplinary dialogue (Guinigundo, 2018; Rosner et al., 2017). In addition, a guide outlining the steps to be taken when utilizing specific IT or ICT tool in a nursing scenario will be created so that nurses could follow it accurately.
Afterward, nurses will be provided with training sessions during which they will learn to manage the equipment and use it in specific contexts. Namely, the suggested tasks will include a series of training for developing an automatic skill in handling IT and ICT devices such as Telehealth, as well as scenarios in which nurses will have to select an appropriate tool and the relevant course of actions (Cannon, 2018). To finalize the training process, an assessment will be conducted as the means of identifying nurses’ progress (Cresswell et al., 2017). The assessment process will require demonstrating key skills and managing a scenario in which a particular range of IT and ICT innovations will have to be applied to address a certain health concern.
Change in Policies
In addition to the described solutions for handling the problem of health information technology and its use by nurses and healthcare experts, changes on the policymaking level need to be incorporated into the specified context. Namely, it is highly desirable to invite nurses, specifically, ARNs and APRNs with substantial experience in managing a variety of health issues by using IT and ICT devices, as well as challenges associated with nurse education (Bell, 2018; Harerimana & Mtshali, 2019). The perspective that ARNs and APRNs will offer will be vital in creating new policies since it will inform them and allow addressing actual concerns faced by the nursing and healthcare staff when managing technologically advanced tools in the target setting.
Evaluation of Solutions
Strengths
The chance to improve the quality of care by introducing clear guidelines and offering nurses to develop automatic skills for handling emergencies is the foundational advantage of the described strategy. The incorporation of the said strategies into the nursing context will help to promote prompt decision-making and help nurses to gain confidence in using IT and ICT tools, thus encouraging their self-directed learning (De Leeuw et al., 2020).
Weaknesses
The lack of a uniform strategy toward promoting the acquisition of the said skills is the main disadvantage of the proposed intervention. Without a homogenous approach, the application of the training sessions may ultimately result in a failure. In addition, given the high diversity rates among nurses, culture-specific approaches will be required, which will be rather time-consuming (Asan et al., 2017).
Opportunities
The current situation with the management of patients’ needs and the introduction of the relevant technology, specifically, IT and ICT tools into the process, also implies pursuing certain opportunities. For instance, improvements across the communication chain within the selected healthcare environment can be listed as the essential positive change that is rife with opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration. In addition, the emergence of IT and ICT tools will instigate better nurse education and faster development of critical skills that will allow nurses to cater to patient’ needs with better outcomes (De Leeuw et al., 2020).
Threats
However, the introduction of the proposed change will also cause several threats to emerge. Namely, there is a probability of nurses being affected by the fear of change to a significant degree. As a result, the process of changing the current healthcare setting is likely to become much more complicated and time-consuming (Ahmad et al., 2018).
Future Challenges
As the assessment of key threats mentioned above indicates, even with the integration of IT and ICT tools into the nursing context, healthcare staff member will still have to face numerous challenges when it comes to meeting workplace requirements. For instance, the problem of nurse shortage and the resulting rise in workload has become a part of the nursing industry’s characteristic over the past decade (Fawaz et al., 2018). Therefore, ensuring that nurses receive the necessary education, acquire key skills, and remain motivated and devoted to their work is going to be quite a challenge.
Addressing Challenges
To manage issues represented above, it will be necessary to alter the existing policies for nurse education, as well as other legal standards for the target demographic Therefore, it is highly desirable that nurses should be involved in the policymaking process (Keeley et al., 2020; Scantlebury et al., 2017). Providing information about the manner in which healthcare services are provided and exemplifying why specific healthcare initiatives designed by the government are most likely to fail, nurses will contribute to making healthcare policies more applicable to a real-life environment, as well as overall more useful.
Another important change that needs to be made when addressing the challenges outlined above concerns developing the culture of interdisciplinary cooperation. Although the subject matter is often viewed as central to effective treatment, the inherent hierarchy within the healthcare system, which prevents from implementing the described change, is rarely addressed (Fawaz et al., 2018). Therefore, by encouraging healthcare staff members to acknowledge the importance of each participant and their personal input, one will dismantle the specified hierarchy, thus creating the basis for uninhibited interdisciplinary collaboration.
Conclusion and Recommendations
Although the integration of innovative technology into the context of modern healthcare is often viewed as the step that will cause a series of positive changes, it will also have to be supported by a range of other less noticeable changes, particularly, in nurse training and education, to improve patient outcomes. By creating nurse training options that will allow staff members to adjust to the new equipment and the communication and education opportunities that it provides, one will create a platform for tremendous change.
References
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