Unit 2 Project Post

Karina Diaz

Prof. Weiner

WRT 205

9 July 2018

Technological intervention in the medical field. Successful or not? What we need to know.

Have you ever wondered if the future does more harm than good? Many of us wonder about controversial topics like did the iPhone make us more dependent on technology or did the new vacuum robots make us less responsible and lazy. Truth is nobody completely has the answer to whether technology in our lifetime has become a burden more than it has improved the world around us. Those of us who find an interest in understanding how technology has ultimately empowered medicine must read this. Because it will not only offer an explanation of what has improved but also demonstrate how there are still uncertainties of whether or not technology is doing good or bad in the medical field. It is crucial to explore these grounds on the influence of the medical field. In recent years, medicine has become a popular candidate where technological advancement is put to the test. These new discoveries have helped healthcare informatics and medical procedures thrive to become more efficient and successful due to the input of technology.

Technology that has or is being implemented in the medical field is often questioned for its net benefits: has or is it yielding more positive outcomes than it does negatives? Let’s look into some cases. When we talk about technology increasing efficiency in the medical field it does not mean make it easier for people to get medicine. In fact, increasing healthcare efficiency is the ability to make results less prone to human error with the use of information technology or IT. In the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, professor Abha Agrawal of SUNY Brooklyn writes regarding medical errors and its preventions with use of technological intervention. According to his journal, “In the USA, medication errors are estimated to harm at least 1.5 million patients per year, with about 400,000 preventable adverse events.” (Agrawal). This demonstrates a severe number of people in the country that are affected due to medical errors administered by caretakers. People rely on doctors to be aware of every medical move they administer but this causes more harm as we can see from the statistics Agrawal mentions. Thus, a case for accelerated implementation of technological advancements

can easily be made with a clear trackable benefit of reducing the loss of lives or near life-threatening events. With this in mind, there has been a computerized physician order entry (CPOE) support system that improves patient safety minimizing the amount of error. Examples of these errors include, “using the wrong drug or dosage form, incorrect dose calculation, not checking for allergies, and failure to adjust dosages in patients with renal or hepatic dysfunction” (Agrawal). This healthcare informatic system will therefore decrease the physician error and prevent the 1.5 million patients whom we talked about earlier be given wrong medication. To give a visual perspective below is an image of the CPOE support system and its indications to alert the physician shown in yellow (see fig.1).

 

(Figure 1).

Furthermore, along with this system there has been benefits to using electronic health records or EHR in an effort to prevent patient safety. This form of healthcare informatics allows the patient to have real time records of their medical history. Instead of paper records that used to take time to find and put in order, in the words of the HealtIT.gov, “our world has been radically transformed by digital technology…medicine is an information-rich enterprise”. These EHR records allow for efficient collection and storing of patient care data all in the hands of technology informatics. The EHRs, “encompasses and leverages digital progress and can transform the way care is delivered and compensated” (Benefits). This use of technology will not only make healthcare systems more efficient but also ensure patient safety.

However, even though most say that technology is the answer to making healthcare informatics and patient safety efficient it isn’t completely convincing to most people yet. Here follows a counter argument introduced by a study published on Science Direct where a research study with graduate nurses put to handle technological administrations in order to see if technology is in fact helping or making it harder for people to compensate at a less technological way. According to the researcher’s results were not as they thought. Before beginning their trials they noted that “medication administration errors are frequently reported, with nurses implicated in 26-38% of in-hospital cases..this points the need for new ways of educating nursing students in today’s medication administration.” (Orbaek). The goal of this study was to demonstrate whether or not nurses were able to be competent with the technology administrations used in the future. As mentioned earlier this research study came out with an unexpected result showing us a different view on technological effects of medical healthcare. According to the researchers “understanding the technologies; professionalism and patient safety are three crucial elements in the medication process” (Orbaek). Meaning that if any of these were not demonstrated by the nurses in the study technology would be unfit to be put to use in the hands of those who are not competent with the technology. This makes us think twice about the reliability we give technology even though it may be completely out of our hands to be able to fulfill those three elements mentioned before in order to secure patient safety in the healthcare system. The conclusion of the research study says, “nursing students face difficulties in identifying and adopting best practices…the impact of using technology on the frequency, type, and severity of medication errors” (Orbaek). As it remains it is still in debate if healthcare has ultimately helped or crippled by technology as research shows a higher level of positiveness than negativity on technology in this realm of industry.

On the other hand, while medical informatics have been aided with technology so has medical procedures become successful with the use technology. In a TED talk Steven Schwaitzberg demonstrates an intent to better worldwide surgical learning careers with the use of a technology apparatus. Schwaitzberg compares invasive and minimal invasive surgery by explaining the pain that could be avoided by this new kind of surgery, laparoscopic surgery. He says, " ...doing and teaching this type of surgery led us on a search for a better universal translator." (Schwaitzberg). This is where he combines the use of technology to promote the understanding and learning of a new procedure like laparoscopic surgery. He calls it the "universal translator" or a "healthcare lexicon" (Schwaitzberg) that can be used throughout the world to teach surgeons in their native language. The mindset of Steven, "we need to employ technology to assist us in this quest" (Schwaitzberg). The quest being that task to be able to succeed in teaching the new surgical laparoscopic procedures to surgeons all over the world in their native language with the use of surgical equipment in multiple languages as well as surgical instructions. To do this Steven paired up with IBM research in order to be able to come up with this universal translator. The system is called “Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery” or FLS (see fig.2). The new universal translator has had a potential increase in medical procedures outcome.

(Figure 2).

As aficionados of looking at how the course of medicine has improved with the use of medicine it is important to mention pacemaker technologies. As today we hear of more and more cardiac patients needing these devices to live. Currently in the market there are pacemakers that have become improved in numerous areas of technologies. “Tracking device data through wireless remote, MRI-safe, longer battery life” (Fornell) to name a few of the features that have been improved with technology. According to the Diagnostic and Interventional Cardiology, “the longevity of its latest pacemaker batteries to be about 12.1 years…before it was only 9.4 years” (Fornell). This is a great improvement in medical procedure effectiveness because it shows the substantial amount of battery life technology has been able to give these pacemakers. Therefore, decreasing the need for surgical procedures to be done earlier and prolonging these procedures to implant pacemakers that have low battery life.

Unfortunately, while we believe that technology has contributed to new kinds of laboratory tests to assist diagnosis as well as accurate lab results. Others argue that physicians should still practice good judgement/discretion to insure the efficiency and effectiveness of applying such tests. The main argument that is heard of is that of unnecessary scans and tests prescribed by a hospital. An article on the Scientific American says, “…the scans do not affect treatment or improve outcomes any faster for patients-but it can lead to radiation exposure and unnecessary surgery” (Haelle). Even though all these screenings involve the use of high technology equipment that has been a help in pin pointing many medical diseases now it is seen that these screenings may have downsides in the long run. Hospitals may prescribe unnecessary tests and thereby not only increase the cost but also put you at risk of misdiagnosis or another disease later on. Professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine states that “mammography use is responsible for about 20 percent of the cases of overdiagnosis of breast cancer” (Fornell). While this is a worrisome finding the percentage is still below a substantial number making it a more drastic problem for us to look into. However, knowing that medicine is currently advancing every day we should not let these numbers affect our optimistic perspective on medical technology being a helping hand!

Ultimately, we should continue believing that medicine has more outcomes due to technological advancements than it has had bad outcomes. There is a reason things are put to the test and that is to see whether the results are greater than the negative. In our case, medicine has been known to be a candidate of technological implementation in order to further successful rates. As mentioned various times earlier technology has brought more IT (information technology) into the medical field therefore allowing the system to become more efficient and effective. All in the meantime providing better and successful results such as the creation of the new pacemaker giving a person the ability to prolong unnecessary surgery by improving the pacemaker longevity. As well as the universal translator giving surgeons all around the world the ability to practice laparoscopic surgery by learning in their native language. Let’s continue to thrive for the success of technological intervention in the medical field!  

Works Cited

Agrawal, Abha. “Medication Errors: Prevention Using Information Technology Systems.” British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology 67.6 (2009): 681–686. PMC. Web. 30 June 2018.

“Benefits of EHRs.” HealthIT.gov, 5 Oct. 2017, www.healthit.gov/topic/health-it-basics/benefits-ehrs.

Fornell, Dave. “New Pacemaker Technologies.” DAIC, 28 Feb. 2018, www.dicardiology.com/article/new-pacemaker-technologies.

Haelle, Tara. “Putting Tests to the Test: Many Medical Procedures Prove Unnecessary-and Risky.” Scientific American, 5 Mar. 2013, www.scientificamerican.com/article/medical-procedures-prove-unnecessary/.

Orbaek, Janne, et al. “Patient Safety and Technology-Driven Medication – A Qualitative Study on How Graduate Nursing Students Navigate through Complex Medication Administration.” Patient Safety and Technology-Driven Medication – A Qualitative Study on How Graduate Nursing Students Navigate through Complex Medication Administration, Science Direct, 25 Nov. 2014, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S147159531400170X.

Scwaitzberg, Steven. "A universal translator for surgeons" TED. November 2012. Lecture. Link: https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_schwaitzberg_a_universal_translator_for_surgeons