Electronic Networking Impact on Health Care
What is Electronic Network
In
general, a network is composed of a minimum of two connected points. For
example, one person talking to another, face to face, can constitute a network.
Telephone networks connect at least two people using transceivers, wire,
switches, and computers. Television networks connect large numbers of people.
An electronic network is considered to be the connection or linking of two or
more computers to allow data and information exchange. Electronic computer
networks may be as small as two computers or as large as the Internet,
considered to be a network of networks.
Goal Of Networking In Health Care
The
goal of networks is information exchange and may or may not be bidirectional.
Person-to-person conversations, even if using some sort of intermediary like
the telephone, are usually bidirectional.
Television and some computer network
applications may be unidirectional; however, bidirectional computer networks
are the most common. Examples include local area networks (LAN), which may
serve a department, larger networks called wide area networks (WAN); and the
Internet.
Intranets, which are the internal deployment of Internet
technologies, are becoming more and more common.
Mean of Communication
Electronic
networks are exciting tools for nursing and will be increasingly important in
information acquisition and dispersion, electronic networks, such as the
Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW), not only provide a means of
communicating but also facilitate collaborative research, promote education
regardless of geographic limitations, and allow access and acquisition of needed
resources.
Electronic networks will continue to affect areas integral to
nursing, such as a lifetime electronic health record, nursing research,
increased interdisciplinary collaborative research, education without walls for
patients and nurses, and nursing knowledge acquisition and information
exchange.
Nursing Essence And Networking
Although
the essence of nursing has been a network, that is, the nurse-patient
relationship-ship, there is limited nursing research on electronic networks.
Brennan, Moore, and Smyth (1991) and Ripich, Moore, and Brennan (1992)
investigated the use of electronic networks to facilitate nursing support of
home care clients and their caregivers.
They that concluded a computer network
is an excellent tool to facilitate support and information exchange among caregivers
and between nurses and caregivers for patients with AIDS and Alzheimer’s
disease.
Case Study In Nursing And Electronic Means
There
are anecdotal reports and case studies to support nurses use of electronic
networks. Sparks (1993) has been instrumental in her advocacy and promotion of
electronic networks and resource availability for nurses.
In the early 1990s
she championed the Educational Technology Network (ETNet). ET Net promoted the
exchange of information and ideas for nurses, nurse educators, and nursing
students.
It was the first international electronic network managed by a nurse.
Barnsteiner’s (1993) and Graves’s (1993) work with nursing resource
availability (Online Journal of Nursing Knowledge Synthesis and the Virginia
Henderson STTI Electronic Library, respectively) and DuBois and Rizzolo’s
(1994) in the American Journal of Nursing’s AJN.
Network to promote Continuing
education for nurses are additional examples of nursing use of electronic
networks.
Impact Of Information Technology On Health care
As
information technology increases in use and health care requires increased efficiency,
nurses will rely more and more on information technology as one tool for
providing the best possible patient care.
Local electronic networks, such as
clinical information systems, will include other larger networks so that nurses
will have the best information resources to assist nursing care.
Research
concerning the effects of electronic networking on nurses and other health care
professionals, as well as on patients and their families, is needed. Electronic
networking should be examined as an independent variable through the inclusion
of electronic networks in all stages of the research process.
This research
will promote the advancement of health and patient care by providing the
scientific foundation for the appropriate application of electronic networking
technologies.