Pace of Technological Change in

¶ … pace of technological change in nursing is accelerating and to stay current with its many facets takes a commitment to lifelong learning. The continuing advances in technology are paradoxically making it possible to streamline treatment programs to the individual needs of patients better than ever before, and this will only accelerate in the years ahead (Bartholomew, Curtis, 2004).

From nursing workstations equipped with their own Internet addresses to enable greater levels of telematics-based patient care (Sensmeier, 2010) to the development of state-of-the-art simulators to teach new nursing techniques (Harlow, Sportsman, 2007) technologies are creating nothing less than a learning revolution in nursing today. How Technologies Are Bringing Educational Innovation To Nursing Today As many other nursing students, I find my ability to learn and master new nursing technologies is predicated on the level of usability and self-pacing possible with each of the existing and emerging technologies in this field.

The progression of nursing workstations from the 1990s where they were for the most part isolated and not networked, running MS-DOS (Hardy, Douglas, 1990) to the highly networked, real-time telematics many of them have today (Sensmeier, 2010) is a case in point. The ability to learn new techniques using these advanced tools that allow for continual practice and simulation of treatment programs (Harlow, Sportsman, 2007) is also an excellent learning tool. I've found that having these highly interactive, networked systems and applications makes the learning process much more efficient.

Being able to track my progress with online training systems is also motivating. Studies of nursing education based on online training systems where nurses have the opportunity to attain autonomy, mastery and purpose, learning at their own pace have shown to be exceptionally effective relative to traditional didactic learning strategies (Russell, 2008). I've found this to be the case with my own efforts to learn new technologies.

Having the opportunity to learn at my own pace, continually practicing key concepts with the purpose of excelling in the nursing profession is a great way to learn. Breaking down the concepts into modules and practicing them over time also gives me a chance to see how each part of the complex areas of technology are integrated together with the goal of delivering treatment programs that deliver results.

In conclusion the ability of students including myself to accept changing technologies as an opportunity for educational innovation is predicated on having the autonomy to learn at our own pace, a chance to master complex concepts all unified with a strong purpose. Autonomy, mastery and purpose are critically important to being able to learn any complex new area. When learning systems are put into place to allow for those three elements to work together, I've found that my ability to learn goes up significantly.

Barriers To Adoption The greatest barriers to adoption to learning how to use new nursing technologies are the usability of the software, systems and technologies themselves, in addition to the lack of well-written training materials explaining how they work. While technologies continually are being developed to provide for a higher touch patient care programs (Bartholomew, Curtis, 2004) there needs to be a corresponding effort made to make the usability of the systems and software more student-focused as well.

The cryptic messages many software uses and codes that must be looked up slow down the learning process. I have also observed that there is a lack of standards for nursing software and systems, including a wide variation in the use of informatics standards across systems. This made learning these systems difficult as each system had a drastically different logic workflow.

The use of analytics within informatics systems and platforms continues to be a rapidly evolving trend as metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) can be used for further customizing patient treatment plans (Sensmeier, 2010). These barriers of usability and lack of standards across advanced systems slow down learning significantly. Current Skills The most critical skills for mastering nursing technologies center on understanding the nature of how diagnostic and health monitoring software works, and how the patient monitoring aspects of these systems are critical to their performance.

Second the current skills attained in understanding how real-time monitoring works across the Internet is also critically important. Combining all of these into an effective patient monitoring and treatment strategy is also critical. Based on a self-assessment of my abilities, I have a good understanding of how diagnostic and health monitoring systems work. I'd like to understand how to use all the advanced technologies in concert with each other and develop highly effective patient treatment plans and strategies as well.

Based on my own self-assessment, I can see that years of experience will be needed to fully master the integration of systems expertise and insight into creating the best possible patient care plans. Adoption of Learning Technologies in 10 Years My personal vision of where I'd like to be in 10 years within the field of learning technologies is teaching courses on how to use the best systems and strategies to treat.