"the future days"

[Creamsoda, ASN, RN]

Kind of an offshoot of the "good ol days" thread. Using your imagination and seeing how technology has come these days, how do you thing nursing/ medical field will be in 30 years from now? When we can look back and say, remember when? ( cant say that now, but I love the stories!)

[whichone'spink, BSN, RN]

Worse. Too much technology and not enough contact time with patients. I already experience that and I'm not even a nurse. I do hope however that electronic charting software becomes more user-friendly.

[classicdame, MSN, EdD]

robots will bring take specimens to lab, bring meds to/from pharmacy (exists now in some places). Hospital doors will automatically lock at 9 pm and NO ONE can get in without employee badge. (dreaming)

[zofran]

Potassium pills will become smaller so all these little old folks will be able to swallow them!GoLytely will not be a huge gallon jug but a small pill!Ativan 2mg po will be a nursing order so we can give it to anxious family members!

[MN-Nurse, ASN, RN]

robots will bring take specimens to lab, bring meds to/from pharmacy (exists now in some places). Hospital doors will automatically lock at 9 pm and NO ONE can get in without employee badge. (dreaming)

We don't have robots, but a pneumatic tube system similar to those you find in bank drive thrus works pretty well for sending stuff to/from pharm/lab/blood banks/materials/other nursing stations.

Our hospital doors automatically lock and you cannot get in without a badge without coming through the ER entrance.

[WittySarcasm, BSN]

Hospital doors will automatically lock at 9 pm and NO ONE can get in without employee badge. (dreaming)

I want that at our LTC. Because we've had too many family members come in after 9pm and just cause so much trouble. Or get upset that social services isn't there with the paper. Yeah, come during normal buisness hours

[RNperdiem, RN]

ICU with no more cords to untangle.

[beckster_01, BSN, RN]

The technology school in the area has an expo every spring, where students demonstrate their senior year projects. I went last year and one of the exhibits advertised was a cordless EKG machine! I didn't get to see it, but it sure would be great to slap on those EKG leads without having to untangle those darn cords. Maybe that way I could actually catch that paroxysmal AF on a 12-lead.

If it could be adapted to the 5-lead tele monitors then I could keep the $5,000 tele box out of the hands of my CIWA patient who thinks it is a flask of whiskey.

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

robots will bring take specimens to lab, bring meds to/from pharmacy (exists now in some places). Hospital doors will automatically lock at 9 pm and NO ONE can get in without employee badge. (dreaming)

All this already happens at the hospital I used to work at. Robots don't bring specimens to the lab (there's a tube system for that), but robots do come to collect charts and bring food from the cafeteria to the floor. The need for humans is becoming smaller and smaller by the day. I think in the future, hospitals will be staffed by robots. Management basically wants all their employees to be robots anyway...

[DarkBluePhoenix]

We don't have robots, but a pneumatic tube system similar to those you find in bank drive thrus works pretty well for sending stuff to/from pharm/lab/blood banks/materials/other nursing stations.

Our hospital doors automatically lock and you cannot get in without a badge without coming through the ER entrance.

Same with ours as well.

Doors close at 9pm and the only way in (w/o a badge) is thru emergency

[nguyency77, CNA]

I want that at our LTC. Because we've had too many family members come in after 9pm and just cause so much trouble. Or get upset that social services isn't there with the paper. Yeah, come during normal buisness hours

I know, right? There's always the one patient with the annoying daughter-in-law or whatever who thinks it's completely okay to obnoxiously ring the visitor doorbell, waking up every confused resident on our unit, at 9:45 PM.

This is the time of night when the nurses finally get to sit down and do their charting, so which lucky CNA gets to deal with the confused 6'4" man trying to climb over the nursing station? 100-lb, little me.

[nurse2many]

Great thread! How about this! A patient is hooked up to a machine that monitors his condition. When his lab values are critical, his condition deteriorates and warrants a call at 2 am to a MD about further orders , an automated "nurse" comes on and reads data to him. MD can not give her an attitude because it's a machine reading and instead he has to listen and pay attention. MD gives orders to the machine, the computer processess the orders, the nurse gets them, signs off and off she goes to save the patient. I don't know - it's good to dream sometimes.