Emerging Technologies Have the Potential to Improve Healthcare Delivery

Despite the sector's slow adoption, emerging technology has immense potential to revolutionize healthcare and transform patient outcomes. Seven standout technologies show great promise in enhancing care provision and reducing costs.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a standout technology capable of automating tasks that require human intelligence, such as decision-making and language understanding. Healthcare can benefit greatly from AI applications, including Virtual Nursing, Smart Hospital Spaces, and Smart Wear Tech. These AI applications can offer virtual support, monitor vital signs, offer emotional support, personalize treatment plans, and elevate patient comfort.

3D Printing is a breakthrough technology that creates three-dimensional objects from digital files, enabling tailor-made healthcare solutions. For instance, 3D-printed prosthetics can be customized to fit precisely, enhancing patient comfort while reducing risks.

Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR/VR) offer real-world environment enhancement and simulated imaging for healthcare applications. Surgical residents can use VR simulations to practice complex surgical procedures in a low-risk environment, enhancing the quality of medical training.

These emerging technologies embody the enormous potential to improve healthcare delivery while reducing costs, offering a glimpse of a brighter future.

Technology Replacing Medical Secretaries? (Video)

When I started as a Unit Secretary in the early 2000s, I remember deciphering the doctor's written order and entering it into the computer.

I also remember walking from the nursing station to the COW (Computer On Wheels) and handwriting the new medication order on the patient's MAR (Medication Administration Record).

But today, the nurses or doctors enter the orders (unless written on paper, in which case the Unit Secretary enters them into the computer).

But is that really technology doing a job that we used to do, or did it just get assigned to someone else?

So, how is technology changing the way you do your job? Let me tell you what I'm seeing.

We used to have to go in and email the discharge summary to the doctors (who were on a select list that wished to have a record of their patient's hospital visits sent to them), but after about a year, technology (at least that is what they said) automatically emailed it to the doctors. It was one less thing for us to do, but it didn't affect us because we kept forgetting to go in and email it in the first place. After all, there were too many steps involved in doing it. 

Also, when I went to get lab work drawn at a national laboratory company, I saw they didn't even have a secretary! You have to sign in on a tablet and wait to be seen.

So, am I worried about the future without Unit Secretaries? No, because these four things below are facts.

1. There's a shortage of people with previous experience or who want to work as a unit secretary.
2. Hospitals are using CNAs/PCAs as secretaries for smaller units.
3. Suppose there is an emergency (think Hurricane, mass shooting, terrorist attack, etc.), and you have a large number of patients flooding the Emergency Room. Are they going to be signing in on a tablet and sitting and waiting to be called? 
4. The nurses won't have it or allow it. The hospital once hired a consulting firm that suggested eliminating the night shift secretaries. Let's just say that didn't happen.