Embracing technology – the future of nursing care

Published: 12 March 2013

Technology and health care may not always have been the most comfortable of bedfellows, but there’s an increasing drive to integrate technology and informatics, or eHealth, into the way nursing staff deliver care.

This has been driven by a number of factors, most notably a desire to increase efficiencies and improve patient care and patient experience, and it’s vital that nursing staff don’t become passive recipients of eHealth developments; they need seize the initiative and influence how eHealth can improve care processes and outcomes for patients.

Nursing and healthcare staff have much to offer and much to gain from embracing the new ways of delivering care that digital services can offer, and the Royal College of Nursing is keen to ensure they grasp the opportunity to get involved.

As a result, the RCN is running a half-day workshop at the prestigious British Computer Society Healthcare Computing conference, which is being held at The ICC in Birmingham on 16-17 April 2013, to give nursing staff an opportunity to focus on how they can influence the provision of high quality, person-centred, safe and effective care underpinned by the use of technology and informatics.

Chaired by RCN West Midlands Regional Director Paul Vaughan, ‘Influencing the Agenda: Valuing & Evaluating Technology’ will incorporate presentations including examples from nurses who have influenced ways of evaluating and embedding technology and informatics into everyday practice.

It will also explore ways of supporting nursing staff to deliver more efficient care and improving patient outcomes and patient experience within the national context, while a panel discussion involving the speakers from the workshop will give the audience a chance to ask challenging questions and share their experiences from the frontline.

The conference itself is free to attend for anyone and everyone who has an interest in creating, managing or using information, supported by technology, to improve health and care services, while the RCN workshop starts at 1pm on Wednesday 17 April.

To register for the conference, please go to www.hc2013.bcs.org, while you can find out more about the RCN workshop here - 'Influencing the Agenda: Valuing & Evaluating Technology' (PDF, 254KB) (how to access PDF files).