What do the changing trends tell us about the future of nursing careers? In the next decade or two, it might look very different from what we see today. With new technologies, advancements in drugs and treatments, changes in healthcare policy, insurance policies and coverage, it it likely that the healthcare profession including nursing would have to reinvent itself. As an example, as technology continues to advance many healthcare functions can become automated. These include patient records, medical documentation, and use of smart beds used to monitor patients’ vital signs, more use of bar coding, and automated medicine carts which could be used to cut down time and reduce errors that result from dispensing medical drugs. In addition, voice-activated technology can be used to reduce the amount of written documentation. Tasks such as serving meals can also be taken over by trained medical aids in order to free up nurses to provide the human touch to their patients.
Due to nursing shortages, hospitals and other healthcare institutions have to use their staff more judiciously. Nurses will be tasked with spending more time at the bedside to serve as educators and care coordinators. This will refocus their role with their patients. As the lengths of hospital stays getting shorter due to medical costs, nurses must make most use of the time they spend with patients. Nurses will also work in more administrative roles and supervising positions. Given that, they will need to know how to access and retrieve knowledge and information in order to share it with their patients and their families.
The diversity of the healthcare workforce is also likely to increase as technology also continues to advance. This means that more emphasis will also need to be placed on increasing the teaching nursing staff through recruitment and retention in order to relieve the strain and shortage of faculty members. Further, loans and financial scholarships at the graduate level, (both PhD and Masters) will also need to be made available so as to encouraged already qualified medical and healthcare professionals to consider the teaching profession. In addition, medical programs will also have to be willing to offer higher compensation to the staff in order to encourage them to stay.
If the nursing shortage continues, hospitals may have to be reserved only for the very sickest. That means that the number of outpatient care will increase, as will the need for home health care nurses. They will also serve more prominent roles in clinics, consulting firms, insurance companies, and software and technology companies. Nurses in the future would probably do much more population-based or community health care. They will identify risks and establish priorities for specific populations and groups. They will provide community education and work with employers and insurance payers to develop programs that save money as well as promote health.
Nurse practitioners have a foreseeable bright future in geriatrics and gerontology. As the baby boom generation gets closer to retirement age, nurses will find themselves in new roles. For those medical professionals who are not ready to retire, they may find themselves in consulting roles for as example health care providers in retirement homes, because they themselves would have a good understanding of the needs of this generation
As medical research and technology advances, nurses will focus considerably on prevention rather than treatment. Further, medical drugs that target diseases before they start, and identifying risks will also enhance preventative healthcare. This will require patient to take a more active role in learning about taking better care of themselves to prevent illness. This healthcare shortage and the cost of healthcare will also add pressure to the healthcare system to concentrate prevention and wellness models of care.
Therefore, no matter what the future holds, nurses will have be prepared to keep learning, growing, and expanding and changing alongside the transformative role of the healthcare profession. That obviously comes easier when one is passionate about the career.
Sophie Peters edits for a website with information on health informatics degree programs and alternative health degree programs. Look up more information from this online degree resource.