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Transforming Nursing and Healthcare through Technology

The complex nature of the nursing environment demands that the profession emphasize standards and requirements of practice. The practice of nursing remains to be one of the most dynamic professions in the healthcare system, mainly contributed to increased demand for quality and patient-centred care. It entails a collaborative approach to attain optimized care outcomes and one of the areas of concern in the recent years touches transformations through technology and the need for nurses to develop knowledge that meets the demands of the changing practice. Transformation in nursing entails every aspect of clinical change endeared towards improving the way patients care is implemented. Transformation involves the adoption of technology in the management of patient records, improvement of leadership to enhanced knowledge acquisition and incorporation of tools and capacities that facilitate utilization of data to inform clinical decisions (Törnvall & Jansson, 2017).

Recent developments in nursing practice transformation indicate a growing gap in how nurse professions understand standardized nursing terminologies. The imperatives of standardized nursing terminologies underscore the need to establish a conventional means of communication as practice approaches increasingly shift towards utilization of data as part of evidence-based nursing. It is essential that all nurses in practice internalize standardized terminologies and guidelines of training and using the case of Rutherford (2008), provides a perfect example of why nurse educators need to promote knowledge acquisition. Enhancing terminology grasp can be a role of individual nurses or leadership. The practical nursing practice relies on continuous learning and assessment of changes and as a nurse leader, taking the responsibility of explaining to the nurses on the importance of standardized terminologies would be fundamental to the achievement of positive care outcomes (Rachmania, 2016).

Ideally, a nurse leader should be able to explain to nurses the importance of standardized language by affirming the need to establish commonalities in describing care, interventions, patient assessment and problem identification. It would be imperative that nurses from different units, hospitals and geographic areas communicate concisely on treatment options and responses besides establishment of frameworks that allow visibility of practices and comparisons in different settings (Törnvall & Jansson, 2017). The implications of standardized nursing language would be another aspect that would be used to explain to the nurses on its necessity, including its contribution to improving effective care and description of nursing outcomes.

Implementation of standardized nursing terminologies in nursing practice continues to attract significant attention, especially with the increasing demand for quality care pegged on evidence-based practice. The contribution of standardized nursing terminology has been immense according to the observation of clinical practices where its implementation has occurred. Standardized nursing terminologies contributes to a better understanding among nurses and other healthcare providers. Previous developments in introduction and implementation of standards in nursing practices indicate increasing efficiency of care and one area of immense benefit in nursing entailed the adoption of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) whose primary role is to provide common language and terminologies in mental health care (Rutherford, 2008). The streamlined manual communication between nurses, physicians and the general practitioners when it came to dealing with mental health patients. It bridged the gaps of communication and understanding in diagnosis processes and treatment interventions, and the introduction of North American Nursing Diagnosis in 1973 further affirmed the benefits of standardized language in improving communication among medical professions. According to Rutherford (2008), implementation of standardized language as a component of communication enhancement in nursing allows commonness in infection control, safety promotion and knowledge acquisition.

Increased visibility of nursing intervention in the care environment a critical consideration transformative nursing endeared towards achieving quality care. Using standardized language in nursing improves the ability for nurses to express their treatment interventions and care processes to patients besides assuming an improved approach in assessing and recording patient information (Macieira et al., 2017). The increased utilization of technology, especially in patient record management systems, requires the standardized language in terms of describing nursing care activities and improving the overall reliance on patient-centred care and consistent documentation. Unless nurses in the care environment use standardized terminologies to describe intervention, treatment and procedures, visibility of what they correctly do to patients becomes impaired. It can proliferate to undermine evidence-based practice (Macieira et al., 2017).

Improved patient care describes aspects of nursing practice that reflect optimal support to treatment plans, greater transparency, continuity of care beyond the hospital settings and promotion of well-informed diagnosis processes. The implementation of standardized terminologies in nursing care remains to be one of the essential components that benefit nursing practice in terms of achieving improved patient care. The Nursing Outcomes Classification Symptom Severity Indicators is a component of that puts into perspective the contribution of standardized language in enhanced patient care (Rutherford, 2008). Previous observation of the application of the classification system suggests that the fact it outlines disease symptoms significantly improves how nurses approach to care for specific conditions. For example, nurses would be able to determine the diagnosis, treatment options and care procedures based on associated care classification in the manual.

Similarly, standardized language remains exceptionally beneficial when it comes to data collection and evaluation of nursing care outcomes. The evidence-based practice relies on the effectiveness of data collection and evaluation of nursing practices which cannot be achieved without establishing a common language framework. Recording nursing processes, procedures and treatment options using standardized terminologies enhance consistency necessary for comparisons of quality of outcomes focusing on different nursing interventions (Rutherford, 2008). The implementation of electronic documentation and electronic health records to improve healthcare outcomes through enhanced access to information require standardized approaches in terminologies. It will allow healthcare professions and patients to access and easily understand care procedures, diagnosis and treatment options regardless of geographical locations or settings.

Although the implementation of the standardized language in nursing contributes significantly to improved quality of care and overall outcomes of care practices, several issues have recognized to create barriers to optimize its benefits. The challenges in the implementation of SNL may range from nursing perception to lack of capacity to integrate different aspects. One of the areas of concern when it comes to SNL implementation relates to nursing attitudes (Okun et al., 2011). Observations indicate that nurses and other healthcare providers may believe that SNL is not essential to their practice. In contrast, others perceive that the use of SNL integrated into electronic health records is difficult. Other challenges in the implementation of SNL include lack of availability of Standardized Nursing Language in electronic health records, difficulties in documenting nursing care, high level of nurse demands creating limited time for documentation and lack of reimbursement for nursing documentation (Okun et al., 2011).

The imperatives of SNL in the practice of nursing forms a critical approach in achieving transformative nursing pegged on improving the overall quality of care, enhance the visibility of nursing practices and enhanced evaluation of nursing practices. The nursing practice must focus on increasing the scope of SNL utilization besides understanding that challenges such as poor nurse attitude, lack of SNL in electronic health records and lack of reimbursement for nursing documentation must be addressed to achieve further benefits.