Technology And The Medical Field Essay

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how technology has impacted the health care delivery system. Health care technology is advancing at an increasingly rapid rate in the United States, and globally. Patients and providers are witnessing these changes through the use of telehealth, and telemedicine applications. Telehealth, and telemedicine are often used interchangeably, however there is a difference between the two applications. Telehealth is the use of technology to deliver health care, health information, or health education at a distance (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, n.d.).

It advanced through experiments and critical thinking that left us with inventions such as the bifocals and the information on how to harness and use electricity. In addition to this, there began to be a better understanding of medicine and medical treatments. Most physicians at this time had no schooling and only few had training through an apprenticeship with a more experienced physician. With the spread of general knowledge through the dissipation of information through the printing press made it easier to teach and help physicians develop treatments that were actually effective in treating illnesses or

The improvement of medicine over the course of the human successes gave great convenience to the people of today. Science has cured and prevented many illnesses from occurring and is on its way to cure some of the most dreadful and harmful illnesses. As the world modernizes due to the industrialization, so does the ways of medicine. Some cures are approached by chance, some, through intense, scientific measures.

As described by Dr. Atul Gawande in his book Complications, medicine “is an imperfect science, an enterprise of constantly changing knowledge… fallible individuals” making medicine different from other scientific fields

Harvey used his studies to show how blood is pumped through the veins and arteries by the heart. In the late 1600s, Anton van Leeuwenhoek the Dutch inventor improved the microscope. Because he did so, he was able to view cells and microorganisms for the first time. Breakthroughs in medicine was

Another tool that have had a big impact in the science world is the Microscope. A microscope is an optical instrument that uses a lens or combination of lenses to produce a magnified image of small or microscopic objects such as bacteria and cells. One of the most known and historic purposes that the microscope has been used for is during the discovery of penicillin. Dr. Fleming, a bacteriologist, observed that a plate culture of staphylococcus had bee contaminated by a blue green mold. Then tracking and observing the bacteria through a microscope Dr. Fleming was able to observe that the colonies of bacteria next to the mold were being dissolved. Fleming then proceed to grow the mold in pure culture and produced a substance that killed a number of

The goal of this literature review is to increase our knowledge about technology use in practice and to identify where there is need for improvement. Information technology seems to be a widely discussed topic these days and most nurses have no clear idea how it can transform the way we do things on an every day basis. We will also look at the impact technology has on nursing, patients, and colleagues. We will then focus on a specific nursing setting, in this case the emergency room. This literature review is organized to grow on each independent section so that you, the reader, can form your own opinion, but take with you the universal understanding of how information technology will lead us down a new and exciting career path.

Medical technology encompasses a wide range of healthcare products and is used to diagnose, monitor, and treat diseases or medical conditions that affect humans. This may included but not limited too, pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and medical equipment. Such technologies are intended to improve the quality of healthcare delivered through earlier diagnosis, less invasive treatment options and reductions in hospital stays and rehabilitation times. Recent advances in medical technology have also focused on cost reduction. Medical technology may include medical devices, information technology, biotech, and healthcare services. The impacts of medical technology may involve social and ethical issues. For example physicians may seek objective information from technology rather than listening to subjective patient reports. A major contributor of healthcare expenditure in America is the advancement of medical technology. According to several studies it is shown that there is a correlation between the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) and money allocated to healthcare. One of the leading theories is that medical technology is growing faster than expected.

While advancements in technology have positively impacted the nursing field, it has also created huge concerns with patient privacy and sharing of protected health information leading to detrimental effects to patients and their families. Indeed, technology is changing the face of healthcare with positive innovations to reduce medication errors and documentation errors. However, technology at our fingertips has created immense concerns with sharing of protected health information of patients via social media, email and other means of communication via technology. This paper addresses why I feel the advancement of technology has numerous deficits that need more research and implementation of new laws and policies to safeguard the

There have been many advances in the medical field such as; anesthesia, drugs, machines, etc. This has helped the doctors find alternative solutions to problems, and in return has helped them save more lives. In the article “Medicine” by Britannica, “Many new advances in anesthesia, and these in turn depend upon engineers who have devised machines and chemists produced new drugs. Other operations are made possible by new materials, such as the alloys and plastics that are used to make artificial hip and knee joints.” Advances in the medical field have truly helped modern doctors. Without the medicine, machines, technology they have now there’s no way the doctors could have saved the same amount of lives. As Brian Ward, the author of “The Story of Medicine”, states in his book, “Despite opposition, revolutionary scientists and doctors persevered and made some ground breaking discoveries,” (Ward 22). Even though the doctors during the Renaissance had little technology, they still made discoveries that impacted the medical field. The discoveries made by the Renaissance doctors were life saving. However, with the given technology that is commonly found in modern day society doctors are able to impact the medical and scientific fields and by doing so, save more lives than thought possible during the Renaissance. Within the article “Medicine” written by Britannica, it shows the importance of, “Many other developments in modern surgical treatment rest on a firm basis of experimentation, often first in animals but also in humans; among them are Renal dialysis (artificial kidney), arterial bypass operations, embryo implantation, and exchange transfusions.” Although testing on animals is cruel, it shows that modern doctors were not just experimenting on people. The modern doctors had a thought process to reduce the amount of deaths due to

Over the course of many centuries, medical technology has developed to a great extent. Studies show that recent equipment has evolved more in the last ten to twenty years than in the past thousand years. Before human time, people learned to treat themselves by just using natural substances. Now-a-days, our hi-tech systems in the medical field have been created for the most effective tools for a high level of patient care. While they advance the tools, it will then allow for quicker diagnosis, less pain, and fewer costs, which in the end will help save more lives. Some people are accepting that modern technology can buy them more time to live while others might find it quite alarming because they fear

The practice of medicine has been shaped through the years by advances in the area of diagnostic procedures. Many of these advances were made possible by scientific breakthroughs made before the 20th century. Modern medicine arguably emerged. Both normal and abnormal functions (physiology and pathology) were increasingly understood within smaller units, first the tissues and then the cells. Microscopy also played a key role in the development of bacteriology. Physicians started to use stethoscope as an aid in diagnosing certain diseases and conditions. New ways of diagnosing disease were developed, and surgery emerged as an important branch of medicine. Above all, a combination of science and technology underpinned medical knowledge and

Innovations in mobile technology have brought remote healthcare management to the forefront of advanced medical care. The ability to record the cardiac activity of a patient at home has been available for some time. But that method utilized a recording device worn by the patient, which needed to be brought in to a hospital or doctor’s office for a healthcare professional to analyze. Today, real-time monitoring in the patient’s home is a reality.

In today’s medical field technology plays a big role when it comes to patient care. Technology is huge when it comes to giving the patient the best type of quality care when they are in the hospital. In the old days people would just write it down on a sheet of paper and record it by hand, which caused mistakes. Now with the Electronic Health Record those mistakes are drastically declining. Statistics have shown that using the Electronic Health Record has lowered Nursing mistakes as well as improved patient care. Our society has progressed through the years and has been introduced with the Electronic Health Record which has drastically improved our health care system. The Electronic Health Record provides great communication between

Remember the days of the Old West? The women walked around with their parasols or rode in a horse drawn carriage and the men rode fast and furious on their horses. Everything you needed was right there in town: the saloon, the general store, and the barber. When one needed to get somewhere, they would walk. If they needed to travel far, there were steam-powered locomotives. As towns and cities grew larger, it was not so convenient to walk everywhere. There was a need for a machine that could get us around to where we had to go. Technology was becoming a bigger part of the times and the machine we now know today as the automobile was invented.