This issue of NAQ focuses on how nurse leaders have leveraged technology to enhance patient outcomes and make a difference in health care. When I think of "technology," my mind immediately goes toward telehealth or electronic health record. What do you think of when you hear the word technology in the context of health care and nursing leadership? After reading all of the wonderful articles in this issue, I can tell you, my perception of technology in health care has changed immensely. A requisite of nursing leaders will be to distinguish between technology that enables nurses to deliver better care and technology that burdens nurses in delivering care.1 Guest editors Dan Weberg and Rhonda Anderson have collected quality articles that cover the gamut of technology in health care.
As an industry, we have been talking about telehealth for years and organizations have been planning to implement programs or increase the usage of their current programs. Yet, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and we were forced to do things differently, it was fascinating how health systems were able to implement telehealth programs virtually overnight to meet the needs of our patients. Rather than drive to an office appointment, patients can FaceTime their provider, text photographs of their sore throat, and get a diagnosis without being in person. Following that appointment, medications can be delivered so the patients do not need to leave their home due to advances in technology.
I was intrigued by Todd Griner's article describing how he and his team used artificial intelligence to predict hospital census and staffing needs. Who would have thought that someone could have figured that out? Nurses are using apps to pick up extra shifts and navigate through the hospital. Nurse practitioners are using technology to help in providing timely discharges. Robots are helping nurses and patients, and, when we look at what technology can do for health care using big data, we are able prevent errors from occurring, track diseases, and predict events, to name a few.
The American Organization for Nursing Leadership's (AONL) Nurse Executive Competency #5C: Information Management and Technology addresses using technology to support improvement of clinical and financial performance and using data management systems for decision making.2 Competency in technology is the new proficiency that nursing leaders will need to acquire now and in the future.1
We need not fear technology, we need to embrace it. As we learned during the pandemic, we need technology to continue to perform and to provide us with data we need to make appropriate clinical decisions. We need to continue to partner with tech companies to provide health care with ways to be more innovative to ultimately enhance patient outcomes and ease some of the burden placed on nursing in general. Technology should help, not hinder, as we need to be at the table when decisions are made when purchasing, implementing, and evaluating new technologies for our organizations and communities.
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Thank you for all you do for nursing, our patients, and our communities.
-KT Waxman, DNP, MBA, RN, CNL, CHSE, CENP, FSSH, FAONL, FAAN
Editor-in-Chief
Nursing Administration Quarterly
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