Technology: Can't Live With It; Can't Live Without It

Nurses must embrace technology every day. If they don’t embrace it, they at least must deal with it, so it bodes well to stay on its good side. Pretend technology is your friend.

Until the late 1960s, hospital technology was pretty basic. I remember how excited I was in 1968 to learn how to read EKGs, and I worked in one of the first telemetry units in the country. What a great idea, I thought, but as it turned out, we nurses in this new step-down unit spent most of our time dealing with problems that ate up untold hours.

Things have vastly improved since then, but every time one thing is perfected, something else appears on the scene that demands de-bugging and a large learning curve.

I was dragged kicking and screaming into the computer age, and now, of course, I can hardly live without one. Heck – I’ve got a computer on my phone now, but some days I think my brain is going to explode. Technology seems to be getting away from me regardless of how fast I peddle.

How did we get here?

At the risk of sounding like one of those irksome “remember-the-days” emails, I,m going to ask the question anyway: Remember the days when all we had to know was how to use the telephone (it was attached to the wall), a typewriter and an electric can opener?

Remember the days before you had to take a course on how to use a microwave and program a clock?

Remember the days when it took only one knob to turn on the TV?

OK, I admit; I’m not sorry that someone invented the remote, nor do I regret having email. I’m excited about the prospect of online, Internet-based medical records, and most nurses would never give up their PDAs.

But it’s scary to think about how much we depend on technology.

For instance, I recently took my computer into one of those big-box tech stores for diagnosis and treatment last week. Nine days later, I was told that no one had even looked at it. I drove to the store, pulled my tower out of the clinic and went to the Internet (on my backup laptop) to find a compassionate geek who makes house calls.

I found Gregory. He arrived at the door with a Bluetooth on his ear, talking to his father.

“I’m helping him set up his Blackberry,” he whispered as he entered the house.

Eureka! I had purchased a Blackberry the week before and needed help with that, too.

While I watched and tried to learn something, Gregory discovered my computer had contracted 46 viruses. With his right hand on the keyboard, he fixed the problem. With his left hand, he set up email and Internet access on my Blackberry – all while instructing his father on how to do the same.

Glory be. Could I bottle this guy’s DNA and sell it?

When it comes to fixing tech problems, I do what I can, then search for someone like Gregory. Every nurse could use a miracle worker like him close at hand – or at least a phone call away.

Now if I can just quit trying to turn on the television with our portable phone…