Dissonance Between Human Nurses And Technology: Understanding Nurses’ Experience Using Technology Beds With Monitoring Functions Within Clinical Nursing Practice

Abstract

Aims: Are nurses adapting to the mechanized nursing practice environment? Is it possible for nurses to collaborate with technology to provide care to patients? The aim of the study is to investigate what nurses feel about using technology in nursing practice. Background: Preventing patients from falling is one of the nursing tasks that can be helped by using technology, such as sensors. However, little is known about how nurses experience and feel the use of technological beds for monitoring functionality within clinical nursing practice. Especially it is indicated that alarm fatigue makes nurses and patients fatigued and induces a dissonance between nurses and technology. Objective: To clarify the experiences of nurses in clinical practice following the introduction of a bed with monitoring and fall prevention technology (technology bed). Methods: We interviewed 12 nurses working at a hospital about their nursing practice experiences with the technology bed. Results: The content of the interview was classified into three categories: ‘providing a safe environment’, ‘limitation of entry into machine care scenes’, and ‘nurses’ dilemmas’; with eight themes describing nursing practice: (1) strategies of fall prevention, (2) decrease in nurses’ burden, (3) not good at using technology (all tools must be easy to use), (4) inefficiency such as over-engineering, (5) patients feel annoyed by frequent visits from nurses, (6) limitations of utilization from a nursing perspective, (7) nurse resistance to equipment introduction and (8) ethical issues. Conclusion: Although technology beds could effectively prevent falls, many nurses face an ethical dilemma in using these beds. It would be important for nurses to recognize the role of technology, embrace it, and raise awareness of collaborating with technology to eliminate a dissonance between technology and nurses.