Technology diffuses through every dimension of vital healthcare. For instance, bedside technology is of paramount during the assessment and monitoring process of patients and when providing treatment. Technology is applied in healthcare when a health professional wants to access vital information and can also enhance communication. Nurses use technology as a supportive mean of preventing adverse events and errors. For example, nurses use technology to prevent treatment delays to their patients, minimize medication errors, miscommunications, and adverse events like the inability to rescue nosocomial infections, complications of immobility and pressure ulcers. Although technology offers a lot of benefits to both clinicians and patients, it may in times create a lot of challenges in healthcare.
Irrespective of the standing point of the debate to either support or argue against technology in health care during the debate session, it opened every person mind to develop a wider view concerning its use in healthcare. The debate helped in developing a deeper understanding of technology in the healthcare and irrespective of its negative impacts, its benefits can be worked on and collective measures taken to regulate most of the accompanying negative effects. During the debate, my group was against technology in healthcare, and we managed to spot out many of the risks that are associated with technology in healthcare. For instance, as a result of the use of technology, clinicians continue losing the patients touch, security issues when sharing patient’s data, over reliance on prior prescriptions and hence practitioners in medicine cannot deviate from the routine medication administration sequences. Sharing of personal data can cause confidentiality issues resulting to ethical problems. The debate helped in learning that, in spite of the benefits of technology applied for example in bar-coding medication to decrease the level of medication errors, it also reduces physician’s ability to review the accuracy of medication administration.
The debate enriched my understanding of that technology plays major roles in improving the quality of life. Literature has indicated that technology in healthcare has given patients less recovering time and more time enjoying their healthy life. The effects have been facilitated by use of medical technologies in healthcare like more comfortable scanning equipment, minimally invasive surgeries, and improved monitoring systems. The debate also helped in learning that technology has created robotic surgery where surgeons can operate out of their home base where patients can be operated at a clinic near their residing places avoiding stress related to health when traveling.
The debate helped in learning that technologies in health care have benefited people in living independent, more productive, and healthier lives. Many people who in the past days have been chronically ill, experiencing chronic pains, disabled can in current times of technology lead normal or nearly normal lives. For instance, as per debate, literature have indicated that use of coronary stents when treating cardiovascular diseases has reduced the number of deaths resulting from heart attacks and for patients suffering from heart failure by 50%. The debate also brought into view that, as a result of using Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD) by the patients who suffers and are at a risk of suffering sudden cardiac death, it has increased the chances of survival by 98% compared to previous 5% without the device. Additionally, technology has lowered the number of days spent in hospital by an average of about 13 %, hence saving on medical costs. All these were new areas that were brought out clearly by the debate and hence created a new learning environment.
The experience as a debater was that, despite the standing point either in support of or against the motion, the debate was informative. My experience is that it deepened thinking ability towards technology innovations in healthcare understanding both the pros and cons of technological advances in healthcare. In an individual level, one can weigh the case for and against technology in healthcare and give an informed opinion.