eHealth, Technology & Innovation

An innovation growing of the Canterbury quake that allows nurses, doctors and pharmacists to electronically share a patient's care record was a winner at the recent Hi-Tech Awards.

Visiting American nursing professor Margaret Hansen has set out to establish whether delivering complementary therapies – like nature and music – through mobile technologies is a feasible way of reducing anxiety and pain for surgical patients.

Unsure what 'hot', 'sore' or 'unwell' is in te reo? Then a new game app for teaching common health terms used in Māori could be for you.

Nurse manager PETER WOOD believes that a new move to start the day with an ED huddle – instead of a negative meeting focusing on breaches of the ‘shorter stay’ ED target* – has been a positive culture change for Whangarei Hospital.

Simple activities developed to help teachers calm anxious kids in post-quake Canterbury are soon to be shared more widely to help nurses, parents and teachers boost child wellbeing around the country. Nursing Review talks to mental health nurse MICHELLE COLE to find out more.

A dizzying amount of digital help is now potentially available for nurses to help patients self-manage their long-term conditions.  FIONA CASSIE seeks some advice from the experts on what technology nurses can add to their toolkits.

What do today’s modern libraries offer nurses who walk through their doors or, more frequently, login online? FIONA CASSIE talks to district health board librarians VIV KERR and PETER MURGATROYD.

FIONA CASSIE talks to nursing leaders about increasing moves to shared electronic health information, about protecting privacy and why it is important for nurses – even the IT shy – to be involved every step of the way.

Patient privacy breaches have been hitting the headlines. The infamous ‘eel’ x-ray in Auckland led to staff dismissals, and spying on cricket star Jesse Ryder’s clinical notes resulted in four clinicians facing disciplinary action. Nurse-turned-lawyer ROBIN KAY looks at the legal and ethical issues for nurses around accessing patient records – particularly now that unauthorised reading of a file leaves an ‘electronic fingerprint’.

Technology will never replace the art of nursing … but it can make the job a darned sight easier. FIONA CASSIE talks to Michelle Honey, the chair of the Nursing Informatics group, about nurses using information technology to improve health care.