Technology Week 7: Safety and Use of Technology

Technology Week 7: Safety and Use of Technology

• Health technology regulation, assessment, and management are interconnected functions for effective and safe medical device use.
• Health Technology Regulation focuses on ensuring medical devices and drugs meet safety, quality, and efficacy standards. Regulatory processes apply universally, but are especially emphasized for complex technologies.
• Health Technology Assessment (HTA) evaluates clinical effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, and societal impact of medical technologies to guide healthcare decisions.
• Health Technology Management (HTM) involves the planning, procurement, maintenance, and proper use of medical devices to ensure operational efficiency and safety.
• These functions (regulation, assessment, and management) complement each other: Regulation ensures compliance, HTA supports informed decisions, and HTM ensures optimal implementation and ongoing use.
• Specialized regulatory processes (STD) are often reserved for addressing complex medical technologies requiring detailed oversight. This collaborative approach ensures safe and efficient health technology use in healthcare systems.
• Decision-making in health systems is often driven by management, particularly in systems with hospital or regional autonomy. To maximize public health impact, HTA should be applied at national, hospital, and regional levels, aligning with individual health system needs.

Week 9: Monitoring, Utilization, and Assessment of Health Technology (Parenteral Injection)

• Parenteral injection is administering medications directly into the body, bypassing the digestive system. It is used when enteral administration isn't feasible or when rapid therapeutic effect is needed.
• Key points: Bioavailability and sterility/safety are crucial.
• Parenteral administration is used for drugs not absorbed in or broken down by the gastrointestinal tract, when prompt action is required, or when the patient cannot ingest medication.
• Considerations include nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.
• Intradermal injection (ID) is slow-absorbing and primarily used for diagnostic purposes like allergy or sensitivity tests.
• Subcutaneous Injection (SC) delivers medication into fatty tissue beneath the skin for slower, sustained absorption in cases such as vaccines, insulin, and growth hormone. It is less painful and suitable for self-administration than intravenous (IV) injection.
• Intramuscular Injection (IM) delivers medication into muscle tissue for faster absorption than SC.

Week 9: Monitoring, Utilization, and Assessment of Health Technology (Continued)

• Intravenous injection (IV) delivers medication directly into the bloodstream for rapid, immediate effect. It is suitable for large volumes of fluids; it requires trained personnel and aseptic technique, and involves risk of infection, phlebitis or air embolism.
• Barcode technology uses machine-readable codes to represent data. It enhances efficiency, accuracy, and patient safety in healthcare settings.

Week 9: Medical Device Tracking

• Medical device tracking and surgical instrument tracking are important.
• Disadvantages of barcode technology include high implementation cost, technical failures, human error in usage, limited interoperability, and patient concern regarding this technology.
• Sterile gauze/semi permeable dressings are used for catheter dressing, and chlorhexidine-impregnated transparent dressings are used to reduce central catheter-related bloodstream infections.

Week 10: Use and Evaluation of Health Technologies

• Rising healthcare costs drive the development of innovative, cost-effective, patient-centered care practices.
• Nurses and nurse executives must embrace continuous self-renewal and adopt innovation to stay competitive and effective.
• Innovation is vital for improving nursing care quality, reducing hospital stays, minimizing patient discomfort, and boosting productivity.
• Nurses should remain open to innovation; reflect on problems to consider potential innovations; and apply innovations in their practice.
• Nursing managers should create awareness around and encourage innovation.

Week 11: Development and Design of Health Technologies - Genomics

• Genomics studies genomes, enabling personalized healthcare by enabling analysis of individual genomes to predict disease risk, facilitating diagnosis, transforming conventional models, and applying in cancer treatment.
• Health data accessibility is a critical barrier to overcome, and projects are focusing on data sharing.

Week 11: Development and Design of Health Technologies (Continued)

• Emerging innovations in technology and healthcare (regenerative medicine, immunotherapy, synthetic biology, and technological collaboration) are improving healthcare and clinical care.
• Examples include developing stem-cell treatments and cell-based treatments aimed at fixing or replacing human cells, tissues, and organs. These are combined with gene/tissue engineering and biotechnological therapies like somatic cell and gene, nano-technology, regenerative medicines and biological products and medical devices. Immunotherapy enhances the body's immune system to fight cancer and other diseases.
• Synthetic biology uses engineering principles to create new organisms, viruses, and cells.

Week 12 and 13: Health Technology in Clinics and Application - Decision Support System (DSS)

• Decision Support Systems (DSS) are essential tools used for decision making. They analyze data and suggest solutions, but do not replace human decision making.
• Key methods used include Decision trees, AI networks, statistical methods and rule-based methods.
• Technology has improved accessibility, reporting tools, and real-time decision making capabilities of DSS.
• DSS systems are implemented in various clinical areas such as diagnostics, drug interactions medical errors and nurse assistant assistance.
• DSS systems help optimize processes and generate data to ensure continuity of services and support, which improves patient outcomes.

Week 15: Telemedicine and Tele-Nursing

• Telemedicine effectively utilizes technology to provide remote healthcare services in areas with limited access to improve diagnosis, treatment support and disease prevention.
• Telemedicine encompasses telepathology, teledermatology and teleradiology, amongst others.
• Tele-nursing provides care through various modalities and enhances patient support capabilities, such as high risk group consultations, chronic disease management and telecare.
• Telemedicine methods include real-time video conferencing for high priority care.

Week 12: Nursing Care Technologies for Wound Care

• Advanced wound dressings include alginate (absorb 20–30 times their weight in exudate, provide pain relief), and polyurethane (transparent and semi permeable allowing gas exchange, create moist environment to support wound healing).
• Other dressing materials include hydrogel and foam dressings.

Week 12-14: Additional Nursing Care Technologies

• Other techniques in improving wound healing include growth factors, prophylactic negative drainage, electrical stimulation, ultrasound, and hyperbaric oxygen therapy.
• Non-invasive ventilation (NIV) methods like negative pressure ventilation (NNBV) and positive pressure ventilation are effective alternatives to invasive ventilation, improving respiratory function and supporting patient recovery.
• Examples of monitoring and assessment include pulse oximeters to assess oxygen levels and arterial blood gas (ABG) to assess oxygen and blood gas levels in patients.
• Technology for respiratory support utilizes devices such as BiPAP which alternates pressure levels and CPAP, which provides constant pressure during inspiration and expiration.

Explore the interconnected functions of health technology regulation, assessment, and management. This quiz covers the importance of ensuring the safety, quality, and efficacy of medical devices through effective regulatory processes and technology management. Understand how these components work together to enhance healthcare decisions and operational efficiency.