As diseases evolve, healthcare technologies also improve. Our generation believes that one way to cope with the fast-paced, changing world is to develop our way of life by advancing healthcare. Nowadays, you can check your patient’s hourly vital signs using the cardiac monitor. With the aid of telemetry, you can monitor all your patients’ cardiac rhythm in the comfort of your seat at the nurses’ station.
You can communicate to other hospitals and healthcare teams using the telemedicine. Nursing may be easy as it sounds than it used to be, but as technology upgrades, so is our role as nurses. So, are you updated with the vogue of health-care? Here are some of the latest tech to keep you informed:
1. Robot caregivers
Who needs a huggable and caring Baymax in their life? I think everyone needs one! Probably you are wishing that this adorable, thoughtful, and squishy nurse are existing in the real world.
Well, did you know that MIT invented a “Huggable” teddy bear robot that can serve as a medical communicator for children? Packed with electronic sensors and sensitive skin technologies, the robot can distinguish between cuddling for comfort or agitation by sensing the strength of the squeeze (Parkes, 2009).
This invention may not be as surreal as Baymax, but this teddy will surely be handy for pediatric patients.
2. Bandage that stops heavy bleeding in just few minutes
Applying pressure can be very messy and bloody, but it is a necessity knowing that severe bleeding is deadly. But here’s another invention that I think every trauma center should have.
The bandage called WoundClot, not only stops severe bleedings within minutes – without the need to apply pressure on the wound – but also enhances the blood’s natural process of clotting (Israel and stuff, 2016).
3. Hydrogel
Who would have thought that a humble seaweed has a great potential in the medical field?
According to Wrenn (2012) in Dailymail, a super-stretchy gel made from seaweed can be pulled to 21 times its original length could pave the way to artificial cartilage. Created at Harvard, it is a combination of two weak gels that bond together to make a self-healing and extremely strong hybrid which ‘opens up new opportunities in medicine and tissue engineering’.
4. Vein Viewer
Every nurse’s dream is to have a patient’s vein like this:
Unfortunately some patients have edema, some are overweight, and some have very delicate veins, which make it difficult for nurses to perform venipuncture. But, good news to all nurses…Introducing Vein Viewer! Say goodbye to blind shots and hesitations because this handy gadget can make our life a lot easier.
5. Capture MegaVac Mechanical Thrombectomy System
One of the serious complications of angiogram or angioplasty is distal embolization which could lead to stroke and heart attack. Good thing is, there is a new technology that minimizes that risk… its name is MegaVac Mechanical Thrombectomy System.
According to Capture Vascular System (n.d), MegaVac’s platform technology employs a unique atraumatic funnel tip that functions as an occlusive membrane within the vessel. When deployed, the mouth of the catheter creates a vacuum seal in the vessel and anchors itself by using primarily blood pressure and a small amount of outward radial force.
6. Artificial Pancreas
Insulin administration can be demanding especially for Type 1 Diabetic patients. But with this technology, insulin administration is less taxing… meet Artificial Pancreas! Instead of the person with diabetes, a computer program calculates how much insulin the pump delivers based on readings from the continuous glucose monitor, (Berg, 2014). To know more about this, Check this video
7. Spinal Cord Implant
This next invention makes paralyzed patients able to walk again! Sounds like a miracle? A study by Minev, et al. (2015) posted in Science explained that this fabricated soft neural implants was designed with the shape and elasticity of dura mater, which is the protective membrane of the brain and spinal cord. The electronic dura mater, which we call e-dura, embeds interconnects, electrodes, and chemotrodes that sustain millions of mechanical stretch cycles, electrical stimulation pulses, and chemical injections. These integrated modalities enable multiple neuroprosthetic applications.
Today, technology plays a crucial role in healthcare but this never makes our profession dispensable. Nurses are still one of the core in promoting, preventing, and alleviating diseases.
What do you think of the latest trends in healthcare? Any technology you want to share with the rest of the nurses across the globe? Let us hear your thoughts!
References:
- Berg, E. (2014). The Artificial Pancreas Aces New Tests. Diabetes Forecast. Retrieved from http://www.diabetesforecast.org/2014/mar/the-artificial-pancreas-aces.html
- Capture Vascular System (n.d). Coronary MegaVac Mechanical Thrombectomy System. Retrieved from http://www.capturevascular.com/how-it-works/
CSC (n.d) 10 Emerging Healthcare Technologies. Retrieved from http://www.csc.com/cscworld/publications/65429/65814-10_emerging_healthcare_technologies - Minev, I., Musienko, P, Hirsch, A…Lacour, S. (2015). Electronic dura mater for long-term multimodal neural interfaces. Science. Retrieved from http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6218/159
- MIT’s Parkes, A. (2009). Works from the MIT Media Lab for the Campus Exhibition at Ars Electronica Festival 2009. Retrieved from http://web.media.mit.edu/~tod/media/pdfs/ars_exhibits3.pdf
- Wrenn, E. (2012). The incredible ‘superstretch’ gel made from seaweed that could be used to create artificial cartilage. Dailymail. Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2199689/Elastic-fantastic-Harvard-scientists-create-ultra-stretchy-hydrogel-water-huge-weights–self-heal-itself.html#ixzz465hzw3oS