Palliative Care Pros And Cons

The content presented in class this week focused on the relationship between nurses and caring technology as well as how increased technology use has/can shape care. Much of my personal insight into these topics was provided through the completion of an activity presented in class. This activity involved two people, each of whom played either a nurse or a patient in order to allow for the gathering and documentation of subjective-based patient information. Upon completion, the class debriefed on the pros and cons associated with the various documentation approaches used, which encompassed paper-based, technology-based, and hybrid (i.e. Healthcare providers write the information presented on paper and then transcribe it into an Electronic Health …show more content…
For example, working in an institution that receives minimal funding will likely mean using paper-based documentation as the costs that accompany the purchase, upkeep, and upgrading of an online record keeping system would create a huge financial detriment. Moreover, when working in palliative care, I believe nurses should use EHR’s, if available as this will allow them to better direct their attention and focus on a patient’s physical symptoms, such as the various types of pain that commonly accompany many of those in palliative care. It is also important that these nurses do not spend all of their time documenting during the nurse-patient interaction as this can lead depersonalization of the nurse-client relationship in addition to the downplay of many other care aspects (e.g. patient involvement in care planning) important in this branch. It is therefore critical that these palliative care nurses prevent this downplay of crucial aspects by being holistic, focusing more on the emotional and spiritual concerns/beliefs of the patient, and ensuring constant patient support and respect (CVH Health Team,