Role Of Nurses As Change Agents In The Adoption Of New Technology

Role of Nurses as Change Agents in the Adoption of New Technology
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Role of Nurses as Change Agents in the Adoption of New Technology
While they may often be neglected, nurses do indeed play an important role in helping to keep nations healthy. Health is directly proportional to the productivity of an individual, and therefore, nurses do play an essential role in the economy of a country. However, like in any other field, there are often issues which come up whenever new technologies are being introduced, or a new way of doing things is being ushered in. In hospitals, for example, the first people who will be directly affected by any change are the nurses, and their acceptance or resistance towards a certain piece of technology can go a long way into determining its success or failure. Currently, a significant number of patients lose their lives because of simple issues, for example, medical errors which could have been avoided had there been an efficient records management system. Looking at various studies elucidating further on the issue of medical errors within hospitals, a majority of them are pointing towards the integration of Information Technology. To these researchers, it is only after hospitals have integrated efficient electronic health records (EHR) that some mistakes will be avoided or abated. However, as already noted, any change directly impacts how nurses operate and therefore, their reaction is highly significant to any progress a hospital wishes to make.
As a nurse facilitator, I have to admit that it is indeed quite a challenge to introduce and implement change within a hospital. However, using Roger’s (2003) theory as a foundation, I believe that nurses can be convinced or swayed into accepting or embracing the change that a new EHR system will bring. As a pioneer in diffusion of innovations, Rogers came up with five qualities which help to determine the attitudes of individuals towards the adoption of new technology. He noted that people are often concerned with relative advantage, simplicity, compatibility, observable results, and trialability. These, apparently, correctly help to predict how people will react towards technological change. Convincing people to agree or adopt a certain way of doing things can be an uphill task but according to Rogers, understanding these qualities can help one to sell an idea to a tough crowd of nurses. Below is further elucidation of how these qualities can be used to help sell the idea of an EHR to a group of nurses:
* Relative advantage – relative advantage simply means that the idea being introduced must have certain discernible improvements over the previous method or ways of doing things. While using this quality, I will delve deeper into the advantages of using the EHR over the previous methods. One of the previous methods which was predominantly used in hospitals is the use of pens to write patient details. However, Robin (2017) notes that the introduction of EHR promises the benefit of legibility. He explains his point by noting that “illegible handwriting has been a prime source of medication errors.” To eliminate errors emanating from illegible handwritings, hospitals and nurses do indeed need EHR systems. Aside f...