Digital Technology in Healthcare Assignment

Learning outcomes

1. Analyse and evaluate the application of health technologies and strategies for nursing practice and diverse health context.
2. Examine ethical, legal, socio-cultural and political factors impacting the uptake and use of digital technology in clinical practice for local, national and global health services.
3. Evaluate and compare different informatic tools currently used in order to improve health outcomes.
4. Demonstrate an introductory understanding of the opportunities and challenges digital technology creates for health professionals, and patients and consumers across the lifespan in diverse population groups.

Assessment requirements

Relevance:

Innovative digital technology has provided major advancements to communication, assessment, treatment and management in all areas of the healthcare industry. Registered Nurses need to have a solid understanding of digital health technologies and the professional, legal and ethical implications in clinical practice.

This assessment provides an opportunity to apply knowledge of digital health technologies to a clinical case scenario.

Task instructions:

This assignment is in two parts. Questions 1 and 2 assess your understanding of the use of digital health technology and its legal, ethical, socio-cultural and political factors impacting the uptake and use of digital technology. Questions 3 and 4 assess your ability to apply digital health technology to a case study.

Part one:

1. Discuss the use of digital health technology in healthcare.
2. Discuss the legal and ethical requirements of the registered nurse when accessing digital health information.

Part two:
Case study
Helen is a 45-year-old Indigenous lady who lives in a remote area of Australia. Helen is a teaching assistant and has recently been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and requires insulin. Helen is still learning about how to manage her condition and visits the diabetes nurse educator when they come to the community for their 3 monthly visits. Helen also has hypertension, high cholesterol and had a hospital admission in the past 12 months for pneumonia, palpitations, and complications of diabetes. Helen often forgets to take her medication. Helen has been airlifted and admitted to a larger metropolitan hospital after she was found unconscious. The hospital that has admitted Helen has a combination of digital health programs (pathology, radiology) and paper-based systems. Helen has been reluctant to use the My Health Record due to concerns about who can access her information. The lack of information on her arrival causes delays in her treatment.

3. Discuss how the use of digital health technology can improve Helen’s health outcomes.
4. Discuss how a Registered Nurse can ease the concerns that Helen might have regarding confidentiality and accessing personal information.

Suggested procedure

1. When planning Question 1, refer to the World Health Organisation's (WHO) Global Strategy on Digital Health 2020-2025 and Australia's National Digital Health Strategy and Framework for action to support your discussion. Links are provided below. (approx. 500 words)
   WHO Global Strategy on Digital Health 2020-2025 https://www.who.int/docs/defaultsource/documents/gs4dhdaa2a9f352b0445bafbc79ca799dce4d.pdf
   Australia's National Digital Health Strategy and Framework: https://www.digitalhealth.gov.au/about-us/strategies-and-plans/national-digital-healthstrategy-and-framework-for-action
2. When planning Question 2, refer to the NMBA Registered nurse standards for practice and the ICN’s Code of Ethics to support your discussion. (approx. 500 words)
3. When planning Question 3, think about some examples of digital health technology that would support Helen’s medical conditions and try to address any factors that may impact upon Helen’s uptake of digital healthcare. (approx. 500 words)
4. When planning Question 4, also consider what information you would provide her with. (approx. 500 words)
5. Write your responses, focussing on the effective use of paragraphs to divide the discussion into sections.
6. In addition to WHO and Australian digital strategy links provided above, support your points with a minimum of 10 references. Use the Library search page and/or databases to locate appropriate journal articles.