Imagine you are 90 years old, a grandmother of three, and your husband is also old and sick. You need help with almost everything, getting out of a chair, going to the bathroom, getting dressed, eating and remembering to take your medicine. Despite the advances in life expectancy, aging is not kind, and you feel like a burden to your spouse and the professionals who care for you.
Now, imagine being given a robot that can help with these things – from going to the bathroom to keeping up with your doctor’s appointments. This robot’s advanced artificial intelligence (AI) learns what you like, knows your birthday and remembers your name. Sounds great, doesn’t it? You will no longer be a burden to your spouse or depend on a caregiver to help you shower.
This scenario may sound like the beginning of a sci-fi movie, but it’s closer to reality than you might think. In Japan, in early 2018, a study revealed that elderly adults living at home prefer robot caregivers to humans.
Japan’s "very aging" society, where the number of elderly people is growing faster than anywhere else in the world, has put a lot of pressure on the workforce. Advances in technology are helping to solve these challenges, but they present problems for the world’s most important health profession: nursing.
Perhaps understandably, the idea of a robot doctor raises concerns in a profession based on the concept of "care" that is often associated with human interaction.
A recent study from Australia indicated that providing nursing students with an understanding of technology skills created concerns and concerns about impersonal care. The authors suggest that nurses need to prepare for "defining the identity of a nurse" and call for a "paradigm shift in what nursing is in the digital world".
These tensions were also evident in April 2024, when hundreds of American doctors protested against the use of AI in hospitals. Protesters argue that AI tools are untested, unregulated and undermine the value of parenting practices.
One nurse said that "no nurse should be replaced by a robot", a sentiment that highlights a major problem in medicine today: the role of nurses in the digital world is uncertain.
This uncertainty seems to have led some nurses to reject technology – AI-based devices and robotics – that could improve patients' lives. An important question raised by these tensions is, what does it mean to "care" in the digital age?
It can be difficult to define a universal concept of caregiving, but people who use the term often focus on the human and emotional elements of caregiving. In the seminal book on nursing, Nursing as Caring: A Model for Transforming Practice (1993), caring is defined as: "An essential feature and expression of humanity. The belief that all people , because of his human nature, he cares.”
This definition seems to dismiss the "care" provided through new technologies, such as robots, as actual care. But most people would agree that denying people access to chemical technologies, such as life-saving drugs, is considered unfair and "insensitive".
The capabilities of new digital technologies, such as robotics, which may fulfill the traditional roles of nurses, seem to generate a different response from nurses. It may be because of the previous understanding of care that focuses exclusively on humans, and because working robots may provide, such as providing social support to the elderly, human nature".
Although robots and AI seem to be successful in Japan, the nursing profession may need to rethink the role of technology in healthcare. As people live longer and become more dependent on health care workers, declining working-age mortality rates in many developed countries struggle to keep up with demand for care. . Digital technology can help alleviate this challenge, but resistance to robotics and AI in nursing exacerbates the problem of overstretched medical services.
However, historically, the medical field has always lagged behind in adopting new technologies. For example, in the UK, the health secretary had to ban the use of fax machines in 2018-19, years after the advent of email. There is also no deadline to phase out fax machines in 2020, with hundreds still in use until 2022.
In the case of robots, the same skepticism may not be accepted for the increasing number of people who can benefit from these technologies, especially as the quality and capabilities of these technologies continue to increase. . The future of nursing depends on combining human compassion with robotic efficiency, ensuring that everyone gets the care they need.
Florence Nightingale, arguably the founder of modern nursing, in her book Notes on Nursing, described her vision of the importance of nursing care. Although vague, one thing was clear from this vision, that the nurse must focus on the patient’s needs first and should remove all other problems.
I say that these women have the true vocation of medicine – the good of the patient first, and the second is to consider the place where they should do it – and the women who wait for the housekeeper to do it, or to be for the charwoman to do it, when her patient is suffering, she has no nurse in her.
164 years ago.
As we stand on the brink of a new era in health care, defined by highly intelligent machines, it is important that the nursing profession does not allow a crisis of professionalism or confused perceptions. about taking care to prevent the development of technology.
Nightingale suggested that we should not wait while the patient is suffering. Embracing innovation and maintaining the value of nursing – putting the needs of the patient first – can ensure that their vision continues to evolve, meeting the needs of patients today and tomorrow.
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