Discussion board reply

Overview

• Over the past eight weeks, two concepts that stood out to me the most were healthcare information technology and its effects on patient safety, and emerging technologies within healthcare, particularly artificial intelligence. This course has given me a greater appreciation for just how involved and integrated technology is within healthcare and how big of an impact it has on our daily practice. As a nurse, I see daily just how important clinical decision-support tools, electronic health records, and medication systems are in improving patient safety. While there are many helpful aspects of technology within healthcare, it is not without challenges and problems. Issues such as alert fatigue, information overload, and overreliance on technology can negatively affect patient safety.
• As a future master’s prepared nurse, I envision using these concepts by evaluating technology based on its safety and patient outcomes. As a future advanced practice nurse, it will be incredibly important for me to be able to critically evaluate information produced by emerging technologies and understand that it might not always be correct. I will need to continue to use clinical judgement and not rely heavily on the technology.