Present Day
America spends more than $2 trillion annually on healthcare and, despite spending more on healthcare than any other nation, the United States only ranks 43rd in the world in life expectancy.
Hypothetical Scenario:
Eight years ago, 2032, six major organizations came together to advance the health and welfare of the nation. These organizations, collectively known as the Association of Medical Boards, Experts, and Researchers [AMBER] developed a new proprietary technology affectionately known as MiNurse; Medical Interactive Networking Unification and Resource Scanning Equipment. The AMBER venture funded the research and development that directly led to the engineering of the MiNurse system which was successfully piloted in a variety of healthcare settings in twenty States and five countries. Today, 2040, MiNurse plays a vital role in ensuring that the healthcare system provides seamless, affordable, quality care with improved health outcomes for individuals, groups, and communities.
Prior to the advent of MiNurse, several barriers prevented nurses from being able to effectively respond to changing health care settings in an evolving healthcare system. Registered Nurses (RN), regardless of specialty or work setting, were expected to be flexible, resilient, and to operate in a complex, fast-paced healthcare environment requiring an extraordinary range of skills and talents. Demands for healthcare reforms, evidenced-based practice data that captures nursing care and interventions to improve nursing practices, nursing shortages, an aging nurse force, inadequacy of educational preparation as reflected in the lack of skills and knowledge applied in nursing practice, bullying, unethical practices, lack of training and preceptorship placed nurses at a disadvantage in taking a stance as leaders in a revolutionary healthcare market. MiNurse removed these barriers allowing nurses to be full partners with physicians and other healthcare professionals in redesigning healthcare in the United States.
The MiNurse database is shared between hospitals locally, State-wide, nationally, and internationally through the internet. This shared database allows access to thousands of research journals, medical research, medication databases, as well as a myriad of other diagnostic tools, all at the disposal of the nurse or any other medical staff by using voice commands. This shared database removes the gap of 20th-century nursing practice, where nurses relied on colleagues and on the job experiences to care for patients, as opposed to evidence based practice and technology. MiNurse drastically changed the way in which healthcare providers (HCP), medical facilities, and support industries do business by sharing patient information in real-time.
Come back next week as we build on the hypothetical scenario using MiNurse technology.
References
Central Intelligence Agency. (2018). Country comparison: Life expectancy at birth. Retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html
Trust for America’s Health. (2018). Ten Top Priorities for Prevention. Retrieved from http://www.healthyamericans.org/pages/?id=126