Episode #29: The Tension Between Technology and Practice: Where We Started, Where We are Now and What's at Risk without Both/And Choices

The Tension Between Technology and Practice:  Where We Started, Where We are Now and What's at Risk without Both/And Choices

Introduction to Episode:

We are so excited to have Dr. Cathy Ivory on the podcast with us today.  She brings her expertise and knowledge in nursing practice, health informatics and research to the conversation around the technology and practice polarity in healthcare.                                                                                                             

We’re talking today about the strong tension between the domains of technology and practice and how often one is disregarded or more highly regarded than the other.

“It is important to think about both [practice and technology] whenever we are making a decision about one or the other, that it is a yes/and, not an either/or” says Dr. Cathy Ivory.

Dr. Ivory shares her experience and perspectives on the healthcare technology journey, specifically related to the electronic health record, and what has informed and influenced our experiences to date.

We discuss change as well as change management and how we handle change as an influencing force in both practice and technology.

When design principles and governance are leveraged it enables the technology to support practice. 

Based on her experience Dr. Ivory says, “You can have practice and technology folks [on the governance team] but if they don’t have a little bit of understanding of the others perspective you won’t ever be able to come to a solution that is sustainable”.

Dr. Ivory shares a story of an interprofessional innovative fall risk approach as an example of leveraging technology to support practice. 

As an executive herself, Dr. Ivory shares how important it is for nurse executive leaders to understand baseline informatics competencies/principles and not abdicate the responsibility to be competent to make health IT related decisions.

Join us for this informative and thought-provoking interview.

In the Episode We Discuss:

·         Most issues in healthcare are both/and issues

·         Initial development of the EHR goals were to keep the same as on paper and minimize any change

·         Paper mindset and the influence on duplication and access to documentation

·         Struggle with interprofessional care planning- what and who is the source of truth

·        Practice silos

·         Patient safety issues related to lack of interoperability

·         Influence of the documentation mindset- task or story telling

·         Users collectively influence vendor solutions

·         What is evidence-based use of technology?

·         Bedside caregivers are not educated on informatics competencies

·         Whatever is emphasized is where the attention is focused

·         Focus on practice first then technology

·         Practice doesn’t change quickly

·         The patient as part of the team

Links:

Ivory, C. H. (2019, January). Tug of war between practice and technology.  Nursing Management, 27(1): 7-9.  Retrieved from http://www.nursingmanagement.com

Twitter: @civoryrnc

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/cathyivory 

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