The Role of Technology in Enhancing Healthcare and Patient Protection in Developing Countries

Challenges in Implementing Health Systems

Task:

Information technology, as reported by Lavin, Harper & Barr, (2015), is an important tool for delivering and/or enhancing patient protection and quality of care. It will also help in reducing the expense of healthcare. Although technology is commonly used for communication throughout many mediums worldwide, there is still an insufficiency of maintainable technology in healthcare in under developed countries. According to Remondino (2018), there is a significant problem in healthcare regarding the lack of viability in informatics in less developed countries. Inadequate accessibility to infrastructure, in particular computers and telecommunications, is a major factor in developed countries' failure to take benefit of developments in health care delivery.

It is without question that these developing countries face challenges in accomplishing this feat.  There are financial and structural barriers that make it difficult to implement health systems. The requisite infrastructure, specifically computer terminals, databases, networking platforms and connectivity, is not accessible in most developed countries (Magni et al., 2017). However, there is a large percentage of individuals in these areas that have access to mobile devices, therein lies the opportunity for a greater scheme. As the third provider of healthcare funding globally, philanthropy funding should also be considered a valuable resource in building the infrastructure in developing countries. According to Montero (2018), the surge in global philanthropy reflects the growing focus of international development.

In under-developed countries, nursing informatics may provide optimum patient treatment by developing broadly embraced technologies (Honey et al., 2017). Studies have shown that in countries that lack maintainable technology patient information are typically stored in paper format and film. The use of personal computers to print patient data has become common place as a way to manage sub-par networks. Although it provides opportunity for data storage, maintaining and sharing information may prove difficult and unethical.  Patients are provided with the records in paper form.  Consequently, if they seek treatment from another facility, they may undergo treatment already received and be provided with additional paper records.  As a result, a patient may end up with multiple files making it very difficult for healthcare providers to retrieve crucial information and to provide the best care.  Therefore, the need to develop an infrastructure for technology such as electronic health record is great for hospitals and other healthcare facilities in these developing countries.

The nursing profession is crucial and highly relevant in developing countries.  Considered as public health, the relationship between nurses as caregivers goes beyond their patients.  Care is extended to patient’s families and the entire community where the lack of informatics is evident.  Environmental and socio-economics has helped shaped relationships that reflect the state of development.  Therefore, contributions of informatics are crucial to nursing as a profession and will prove beneficial to ensure the success of medical social reform by establishing maintainable technology that is sound.

PICO form A well-structured topic is important in an evidence-based professional improvement initiative, and PICO is a format used to create a query for a clinical procedure that requires assessment or a modification. The letter P stands for a problem, group, or patient. Letter I, which stands for intervention. Comparison and action under the letter C, is used while contemplating more than one action, which is an optional factor in the PICO query. Only if the action is the subject of the assessment will this aspect be removed. Lastly, the letter O corresponds to outcomes and consequences. The following PICO query is being proposed for this capstone project:
“Among the under-developed countries (P), does evidence-based nursing informatics programs (I), as compared to no program (C), prove to be have significant impact in the healthcare (O)?”

Afrizal et al., (2019) examined the supporting factors correlated with the introduction of Electronic Health Record (EHR) preparation and established the preparation-related hurdles in industrialized and emerging countries regarding the condition of primary health care. It can be inferred that organizational barriers such as lack of qualified staff, poor senior management and lack of contact between team members were typical barriers in developing countries. Whereas human barriers such as unfamiliarity with new technologies and lack of time to use computers were often discovered as barriers to preparation in developed countries. The PICO topic mentioned here therefore aims to determine whether the introduction of evidence-based nursing informatics systems. 

The outcome is based on the basic necessity for health policies in developing countries to be established by those impacted.  Privacy, protection as well as ethical and legal issues pose several obstacles.  In health networks that have proven effective in delivering improved medical treatment, consumers have entrusted their confidential details to them. Nevertheless, it is an essential effort to have the world's greatest potential healthcare by working in a comparable, evidence-based manner. Therefore, it is crucial that government and top-rated officials work with healthcare advocates to get effective laws and policies in place to create the right infrastructure.  In this global endeavor, nursing informatics will be efficacious. Sustainable facilities in the developed world would also be crucial to the progress of nursing informatics, nursing as a profession and its challenges.