Emerging Technology Brief
Emerging technologies have a significant effect on the provision of healthcare in the modern world. The technologies inform the care approaches utilized to achieve optimum, patient-centered outcomes. Legal and ethical issues often accompany the adoption of emerging technologies in healthcare (Duggal et al., 2018). Nurse informaticists have the responsibility of adopting measures to minimize these issues in healthcare. Therefore, this paper explores the use of mobile health applications, as an emerging technology and its impact on nurse informaticist roles.
Overview of the Technology
The selected emerging technology is mobile applications for use in healthcare. Mobile apps are technologies that facilitate healthcare delivery via the phone. The technology enables healthcare providers to offer remote care to their patients. They can perform several roles that include scheduling appointments, providing expert advice, uploading patients’ medical records. Mobile apps also enable healthcare providers to monitor and manage their patients, gather information, and offer patients health education. The adoption of mobile apps enhances care outcomes that include safety, quality, and efficiency. Efficiency is achieved through the elimination of the need for hospital visits and early identification and management of potential complications (Jones et al., 2018). The provision of patient-centered care promotes care outcomes that include safety and quality.
Ethical or Legal Issues
The incorporation of mobile apps into healthcare is likely to experience some ethical and legal issues. One of them is the potential risk of violation of data privacy and confidentiality. Patients and healthcare providers have access to health-related information stored in the apps. Threats to data integrity may arise if patients or healthcare providers do not consider the stipulated security measures in accessing the data. Third parties can also access the data illegally using methods such as hacking to obtain private and confidential data (Vasiloglou et al., 2020). As a result, the adoption of mobile apps in healthcare raises concerns related to data privacy and confidentiality.
The other issue relates to the cost of purchasing, maintaining, and updating the apps. Healthcare organizations bear the responsibility of acquiring, maintaining, and improving mobile apps to address the needs of their patients. They also have to train their staff on the safe and efficient use of the technology in optimizing the care outcomes. The needs increase the costs incurred in healthcare organizations, hence, the challenge (Magrabi et al., 2019). Therefore, a cost-benefit analysis should be performed before the adoption of mobile apps for patient care.
Nurse’s Informatics Role
Nurses have several informatics roles in the adoption of mobile apps in healthcare. One of them is patient education. Nurses educate the patients about the safe use of the technology in achieving their health outcomes. Nurses also play the role of supporting the implementation of policies that will enhance the outcomes of technology adoption in their organization. They ensure the implemented policies underpin the safety, quality, and efficiency goals in the adoption of mobile apps for health (Magrabi et al., 2019). They also propose quality improvement initiatives in their organizations to address issues with technology use.
Workflow Analysis, Human Factors, and User-Centered Design
Workflow analysis is important in mobile apps adoption in healthcare, as it strives to ensure efficiency in technology use. The analysis provides insights into potential benefits and issues that should be addressed before technology adoption. Human factors influence the adoption of mobile apps in healthcare. A focus should be placed on addressing human needs such as training to ensure competencies in technology use. The adopted systems should address the actual and potential needs of the users for them to be user-centered (Vasiloglou et al., 2020). User-centeredness increases the acceptability of the technology for use in healthcare.
Conclusion
Mobile apps for healthare the selected emerging healthcare technology. The adoption of mobile apps for healthcare may raise ethical and legal issues related to data integrity and costs of adoption. Nurses have crucial roles to play in ensuring the successful utilization of mobile apps in healthcare. Workflow analysis, human factors, and user-centeredness should be considered before the adoption of emerging technologies.
References
Duggal, R., Brindle, I., & Bagenal, J. (2018).Digital healthcare: Regulating the revolution.BMJ,&n
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