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Future Development in Nursing

The document discusses how information technology could impact nursing and patient care in the future. It talks about how the amount of information in nursing has greatly increased over time due to factors like electronic medical records and the need to record more patient data. New technologies like databases and database management systems could help organize and store large amounts of nursing information to potentially improve patient care.

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Lavinia Laviseidu
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22 views2 pages

Future Development in Nursing

The document discusses how information technology could impact nursing and patient care in the future. It talks about how the amount of information in nursing has greatly increased over time due to factors like electronic medical records and the need to record more patient data. New technologies like databases and database management systems could help organize and store large amounts of nursing information to potentially improve patient care.

Uploaded by

Lavinia Laviseidu
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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11 -- Future Developments In Information Technology:

Potential Impact On Nursing And Patient Care

Carol Ingrid Bradburn

INTRODUCTION: THE INFORMATION EXPLOSION

We live in a world which has an obsession with information. Just a few


hundred years ago, most individuals would have had little knowledge of events
outside their immediate localities; news of national or world events would have
penetrated slowly and, in general, would have had little effect on daily life. Now
we are not only expected to know about world events as they happen, but to
hold informed opinions on them. Television and radio pour information into our
homes; our telephones and computers connect us to the world.
The nursing profession has not been immune to this information explosion.
Even in the thirty years of my nursing lifetime, the nursing world has expanded.
As a young student nurse, I was only exposed to the ideas and local knowledge
of my own nursing school, augmented by a few carefully selected textbooks.
Now we have libraries to store the proliferation of nursing journals; we could fill
in the year with attendance at conferences; after a conference day we could
pass the evening sitting before our computer terminals and browse through
nursing bulletin boards or send electronic mail to other nurses.
And this is just the information about nursing. We also record information
about our patients. It seems that each year we need to record more information
about the health status of our patients and the care we give them. A common
complaint of nurses is the increasing amount of "paperwork". Legal and
research needs account for some of this but part of it is surely due to the pace
of our modern life. Patients stay in hospitals, or even communities, for shorter
times. Nurses do also. Care is more complex. It is no longer possible for a
single person to remember what is happening to a patient and to be there when
that remembering is required. We have reached the stage where the volume of
the information exceeds that ability of the human brain to manipulate it.
A major question facing nursing, as many other professions, is how all of
this information can be stored and retrieved and, most importantly, how it can
be used to improve patient care. Some tentative answers may be found in
current database research work.

J. P. Turley et al. (eds.), Nursing Informatics ’91


© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1991
63

DATABASES - ORGANISING INFORMATION

A database is simply a collection of related facts. Facts are organised according


to a conceptual data model which allows information to be stored without
unnecessary duplication. Most databases in current use are based on the
relational model in which data is organised in related tables. In the attached
example, looking up "bag-rubbish" in the INVENTORY table would tell you the
number of rubbish bags in stock. Notes that, via the "ITEM" entry, this table is
linked to the PRICE-LIST table which, in turn, is linked to the SUPPLIERS table
via the "SUPPLIER" entry. By using these links as much (or as little) information
as is required about the current status of rubbish bags may be obtained.
Splitting information between tables cuts down on duplication; note that each
supplier name and address needs only to be recorded once, enabling a smaller
and more efficient database.

INVENTORY: PRICE LIST:

ITEM I- NAME IN- STOCK SUPPLIER ITEM PRICE

010 swab 500021 365 010 1.25


012 towel 9326 365 012 3.50
022 forceps_d 136 400 022 5.60
025 forceps_a 19 404 025 7.00
030 lotion red 935 404 033 2.20
033 lotion_green 6 404 030 4.25
039 bag_rubbish 63900 501 039 0.25

SUPPLIERS:

SUPPLIER NAME ADDRESS

365 Hospital Supplies Co. 20 Beach Road. 3036.


400 Designer Equipment Back Lane. 2033.
404 Flaky Hardware Inc. 3 Computer Crt. 3000.
501 Defunct Rubbish Co No Fixed Abode.

Figure 1: Database for surgical dressing equipment

A database is normally controlled by a database management system (DBMS)


which is a collection of programs with which users can create and maintain a

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