How is the Nursing Career is Changing and what this Means for Healthcare Education
What is the future of nursing careers? Predictions are that in 10 or 20 years, it will look nothing like it does today! With new technologies and drugs, changes in insurance and health care policies, and the shortage in nurses, the profession will have to reinvest itself. Many nursing functions will be automated. For example, documentation and updating patient records, smart beds to monitor vital signs, bar codes, and automatic medicine carts could reduce the time and errors in dispensing medications, and voice-activated technology would eliminate the need to constantly write things down. Other nursing task such as serving meals will be taken over by aides. This would give nurses more time to provide a human touch to their patients.
As a result of nursing shortages, healthcare facilities will be forced to use their nurses judiciously. Nurses will spend more time at the bedside as educators and care coordinators to refocus on the patient. With the lengths of patient stays shortening, nurses will have to make the best use of a shrinking amount of time hospital stays. Nurses will also spend more time in administration and supervision positions. They will need to know how to access knowledge and transfer it to the patient and their loved ones.
The changes in technology will possibly attract more men and minorities into the profession. Greater emphasis must be placed on supporting teaching careers and recruiting educators from diverse cultural backgrounds to relieve the serious shortage of nursing school faculty. Therefore, more loans and scholarships for master's and PhDs would also have to be in place, and the colleges would have to pay the instructors more money.
As far as trends go, if the nursing stuff shortage continues, long-term hospital stays may have to be reserved mainly for the very ill. This then means that the number of outpatients will increase, and subsequently the need for more home health nurses. Nurses will also serve more important roles in insurance companies, healthcare technology and software companies, and consulting agencies. In the future, nurses will also be involved more in community health and population-based healthcare. Their jobs will include risk identification and establishing priorities for at-risk populations. These healthcare workers will also serve as community educators who also work with insurance companies and healthcare providers to develop programs aimed at promoting health and saving the patient money and reducing cost for the health care institutions.
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
With medical and technology advancements, nurses will be required to focus more on disease and illness prevention rather than treatment. In addition, medical treatment that targets illness before they occur, and identification of potential risk will also enhance preventative healthcare. This will also mean that patients will need to take a more active role in learning more about better healthcare to prevent illness and disease. shortage and cost in healthcare will also add pressure to the system of care to concentrate more on wellness models rather than treatment models.
Despite what the future holds for the medical profession, nurses and other healthcare workers need to prepare for changing trends and for their evolving roles. In addition to remaining lifelong learners, they will be part of the transformative future of healthcare and medical care. But as you can already guess, this is far easier when one is passionate about their career.