The future of healthcare - technology or human?

Nurses General Nursing

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Drones delivering defibrillators, 3D printed personalised medications, smart watches calling a paramedic minutes before we have a heart attack, diagnostic data science... the list goes on...

mHealth (mobile health) is certainly storming it's way out of futuristic movies scenes and into reality... especially in our hospitals (read... what is mHealth). But, I've been wondering, what are the implications for nurses (and other health professionals)? As is the case in many industries, are some of the roles that health professionals do now at risk of automation too?

What's your experience as a nurse with mHealth/wearables/smart technology?

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I think nursing will be gone in 20 years.

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What do you think will replace it?

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It will be all fun and games until the day the robot nurses' logic processor decides the most efficient way to cure a disease is to kill the patient. If movies have taught us nothing else, it's that robot killing sprees are inevitable.

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All of this costs money. Where is the money to pay for all of this coming from? Most people in this country live from paycheck to paycheck.

Preventive care gets so little attention, but a lot of what ails us is related to smoking, drinking, addictions, overeating, poor mental health and violence. No tech or quick fixes here.

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Specializes in orthopedic/trauma, Informatics, diabetes.

My personal experience with personal health technology has to do with Type 1 diabetes management. My son was dx at 2 years (he is 11 now). We went from 8-10 (on a good day) finger sticks-remember-he is 2. Insulin for every meal and when he was high, plus Lantus for basal. Now he has an insulin pump (no shots) a continuous glucose monitor which means 1-2 sticks a day to calibrate and now, his CGM has blue tooth capabilities so that, paired with his iphone, his father and I (and the school nurse) can monitor his glucose remotely in real time. It is amazing. The schools are having a hard time keeping up with the technology. I love that I can check his glucose in the middle of the night just by looking at my phone. the technology for that is not going to put anyone out of a job, but it will save money my allowing my child to have better control of his disease.

Like a previous poster said, we have to get people to be more compliant, thus healthier. Healthy people are the only thing that will affect our jobs. Not going happen anytime soon.

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A mix of both I reckon. Technology, like mHealth for example, will support nurses and midwives to provide care.

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