Particularly in the area of healthcare, technology is transforming the world in many different ways. The various positive ways technology has altered how we identify and treat patients are numerous. Better patient care is given, and our patient’s safety is also increased. Healthcare in America states that technology has resulted in a significant and welcome transformation to the healthcare sector. Patients nowadays have access to the best diagnostic equipment, cutting-edge therapies, and a variety of minimally-invasive procedures that lead to faster healing and less pain. New ideas will undoubtedly be offered to the healthcare sector to further enhance patient care because of how quickly technology is developing (LeLaurin & Shorr, 2019).
Change Proposal
Alarms for beds and chairs directly connected to the nurse’s phones are one proposal for a new technology that will assist in creating a safer patient environment. Every nursing staff member rushes to locate the room where the noise comes from when a bed alarm sounds. Most of the time, the personnel can reach the patient in time to stop a fall, but occasionally they are unable to do so, which causes a patient to fall. According to the Joint Commission, 30 to 50 percent of patients who fall in hospitals in the United States annually get an injury. Patients need additional care, lengthening their hospital stay by an average of 6.3 days (DuBose & Mayo, 2020). Reducing patient falls and staff time spent determining which room the noise originates from would be made possible by new technology, sending the bedside alarm notice and the room number directly to the nurse’s phone.
The proposed modification will improve patient safety since it will lessen the likelihood of patient falls. Patient safety is eliminating a patient’s avoidable injury during medical treatment and lowering the risk of unnecessary harm connected with medical treatment to a manageable level. This is a significant matter being debated on all discussion boards and remains an enormous situation in healthcare. Healthcare still experiences dangerous incidents regardless of the advances in technology and the medical community’s efforts (Oh-Park et al., 2021). Patient falls are one of the most important problems since, despite their best efforts, hospital personnel still makes mistakes in this regard simply because they are human. The World Health Organization (WHO) claims that four out of ten patients are harmed in the primary and ambulatory healthcare setting, 134 million harmful activities happen each year in hospitals, devoting to 2.6 million deaths due to inadequate care, culminating in medication errors with a cost estimate of $42 billion annually. Developing this system that would notify nurses immediately on their phones
Assessment of Impact on New Technology
The new technology will be used in a pilot program before being gradually introduced throughout one floor to gauge the extent of the shift. The new device would be installed in every bed in the Progressive Care Unit on the second floor, where the patient falls occur most frequently. They will monitor patient falls over the following month, and after that time, they will compare it to months that didn’t use the new technology. When the data has been reached, it will determine the effectiveness of the latest technology and whether it should be installed throughout the entire hospital. Technological innovation should become the new benchmark for the hospital if it can be demonstrated that it did increase patient safety, thereby making the expense of the change worthwhile (Oh-Park et al., 2021).
Communication to Staff and Implementation of Change
The best strategy to inform the medical staff of the intended shift in new technology must be discussed after it has been chosen to adopt across all hospital units. Making a compulsory staff meeting for both the day and night shifts would be the best approach to ensure that everyone on personnel is familiar with the new technology and knows how to utilize it. This would be the best method to ensure that every worker has heard about the change initiative and has the opportunity to express any concerns they might have. Sending an email to the entire team informing them of the change and providing the dates of the upcoming compulsory staff meeting is another approach to telling everyone about the new technology (Zhao et al., 2019). All staff members must introduce and use the latest technology after it has been fully adopted. Individuals are constantly coming up with new ideas to enhance the environment we live in today, including the healthcare sector.
Human factors related to Change and Resistance to Change
One has to develop the transition strategy to meet the variables by being aware of the most frequent reasons people resist change. It is impossible to be mindful of every possible source of change resistance (DuBose & Mayo, 2020). It is proactive to anticipate and be ready to handle resistance to transformation. The necessity to address the problems will become more apparent when behaviors that can be signs of resistance are identified.
Since they are at ease in their everyday living and working routine, most individuals are reluctant to change. Therefore, most people make every effort to resist new technology when it is introduced and avoid becoming the standard. Professionals who put in extra hours establish a schedule at work to maintain organization and maximize productivity, so many naturally oppose change. Naturally, when employees become accustomed to working under the new policy, they create new habits that take this shift into account and finally stop objecting to it. Anyone would anticipate that the workforce would initially fight the latest technology since it would be a change. But once they realize that this was made to save them time, push their tasks simpler, and increase patient safety, they ought to welcome it wholeheartedly (Amarantou et al., 2018). The fact that this technological innovation is not difficult to understand should make it simpler for the workforce to embrace it as their new standard.
In conclusion, numerous adjustments recently have benefited patient care, and more are undoubtedly on the horizon. The medical community is fortunate that people are working to make these improvements since finding ways to increase patient safety will always be a top priority in the healthcare industry. The concept of change will always be taboo to certain individuals in today’s world, although the more people learn to accept it, the better each person will be.
References
Amarante, V., Kazakopoulou, S., Chatzoudes, D., & Chatzoglou, P. (2018). Resistance to change: an empirical investigation of its antecedents. Journal of Organizational Change Management. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2018-12351-011
DuBose, B. M., & Mayo, A. M. (2020, November). Resistance to change: A concept analysis. In Nursing Forum (Vol. 55, No. 4, pp. 631-636). https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/nuf.12479
Lauren, J. H., & Shorr, R. I. (2019). Preventing falls in hospitalized patients: state of the science. Clinics in geriatric medicine, 35(2), 273-283. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30929888/
Oh-Park, M., Doan, T., Dohle, C., Vermiglio-Kohn, V., & Abdou, A. (2021). Technology utilization in fall prevention. American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, 100(1), 92-99. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32740053/
Zhao, Y. L., Bott, M., He, J., Kim, H., Park, S. H., & Dunton, N. (2019). Evidence on fall and injurious fall prevention interventions in acute care hospitals. JONA: The Journal of Nursing Administration, 49(2), 86-92. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30633063/
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