Emerging Technology in Healthcare Essay.

New health care innovations offer the advanced registered nurse an opportunity to apply emerging technologies in practice to improve quality and patient outcomes. For this assignment, research an emerging health care technology that you think has the potential to overcome current or emerging barriers to care.
Write a 500-word brief that provides an overview of the technology, its purpose, and how it would function in a health care setting, including any ethical or legal issues that would accompany the incorporation of the technology. Discuss how this technology could improve access to care and promote patient safety and quality.Emerging Technology in Healthcare Essay.

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Nanotechnology: A Novel Healthcare Technology

Nano means a scale of 1.0 x 10^-9 or 0.000000001. Medical nanotechnology is therefore technology that makes use of matter at the molecular level to assist in the delivery of safe, efficient, effective, patient-centered, equitable, and timely (quality) healthcare. It is healthcare technology at the micro level or a level that is not visible to the eye. In this novel technology, nanoparticles that are invisible to the naked eye are utilized in healthcare because they have been found to be sufficiently biocompatible and safe for use in the human body (Patel et al., 2015). The following is a discussion of this technology as a novelty to healthcare, including the ethical and legal issues surrounding its adoption.Emerging Technology in Healthcare Essay.

Overview and Purpose of the Technology

Nanoscience is one of the fields that have been advancing quite rapidly in the recent decade or so. It is the science that is concerned with nanoparticles and their application in nanotechnology in various fields. One of those fields is the field of healthcare or medicine whereby they find usefulness in biomedicine and bio-engineering. In healthcare, only nanostructures that are biocompatible are used, especially in medical diagnostics and therapeutics. This means that there are many other nanoparticles that are not biocompatible and that cannot be used in healthcare. These non-biocompatible nanostructures are nano-toxic and can therefore harm a human being (Patel et al., 2015; Yasri & Wiwanitkit, 2017).Emerging Technology in Healthcare Essay.

Functioning of Nanotechnology in the Healthcare Setting

As already stated above, the use of nanotechnology has so far been demonstrated to be possible in medical diagnostics and therapeutics. For instance, nanostructures are so tiny that they can penetrate any tissue and therefore if radio-opaque they can be used to identify diseased tissues that have a high affinity for them. This means that they are injected and the tissues are given time to absorb them after which imaging is performed. The other functionality of nanoparticles is in the delivery of targeted medicines to diseased tissues such as cancerous tissues (therapeutics). In this case, diseased tissues such as cancerous cells are specifically targeted and the nanoparticles are used for delivering targeted medications to the diseased tissues (Patel et al., 2015).Emerging Technology in Healthcare Essay.

How Nanotechnology Would Improve Access to Healthcare, Promote Patient Safety, and Improve the Quality of Care

            Nanoscience in the healthcare field will definitely improve access to healthcare in that diagnosis of diseases such as cancer will now be faster and easier thereby making the turnaround time shorter. Also, access to healthcare will be improved by the very fact that biocompatible nanostructures will be used to more effectively and efficiently deliver targeted treatment to diseased tissues (Wolpert, 2016). This is because quicker and more efficient treatment means that recovery will be quicker and hospital stays will be reduced.Emerging Technology in Healthcare Essay.

Ethical and Legal Issues in the Use of Nanotechnology in Healthcare

Ethical and legal issues arise in the use of novel nanomedical applications because (i) they are not yet fully understood, (ii) they are experimental, and (iii) requisite legislation to govern their use has also not yet been enacted in virtually all jurisdictions. Because the nanomedical applications are not yet fully understood, there needs to be more research done to clarify their use and effects. Some serious adverse effects may still be unknown leading to harm to patients. Also, the fact that they are largely experimental brings into question the matter of informed consent before a patient is exposed to nanohealth applications (Yasri & Wiwanitkit, 2017).Emerging Technology in Healthcare Essay.

Conclusion

Nanotechnology is one of the emerging technologies that have found use in the healthcare sector. This is especially in the field of medical diagnostics and also treatment of therapeutics. However, the technologies are still not yet well understood and this makes them experimental. Being experimental means that there are legal and ethical implications associated with their use, since patients may be exposed to unforeseen adverse effects.Emerging Technology in Healthcare Essay.