Top 3 Technological Nursing Advancements
Nursing in the modern digital age means bearing witness to a great number of impressive technological advances.
Tech has impacted the medical community more than anyone may have predicted, as evidenced by these three impressive developments.
1. Pain-free blood testing technology. Plenty of patients, young and old, have a fear of needles. Of them, some have such a debilitating fear that routine and necessary blood draws can be very difficult for the medical practitioner to perform, and the patient or the professional could wind up injured or at risk in the process. A new tool developed by Tasso, Inc. promises to help nurses navigate these experiences more easily.
The wearable device, the HemoLink™, allows patients to draw their own blood in a pain-free, quick and easy process, removing the fear of being stuck with a needle and the potential harm to nurses in the process. Patients are able to deliver their own samples in the Tasso device to labs for testing.
2. Electronic obesity-curbing pills. It’s commonly discussed nowadays that one-third of Americans are obese. This alarming statistic has grave implications for the overall health of the nation, and there’s been no shortage of initiatives to combat and control the problem.
MelCap Systems has taken to an electronic device to fight the epidemic, and has obtained a patent for an “e-pill.” The device, roughly a vitamin’s size, is ingested absorbs fluids from the stomach. As it expands, a magnet positions the pill in the stomach and the device is controlled by a smartphone. The patient indicates when to have the device pulsate, which stimulates the brain to halt overeating and excess calorie consumption. The “pill” continues through the natural digestive process after 21 days.
3. A results-predicting implant to facilitate cancer treatment. Not all stages and locations of cancer diagnoses will respond to the same treatment. With multiple options in many cases, treating cancer effectively can boil down to a medical team’s best educated guess.
Now, from researchers at MIT comes an implantable device that releases small doses of multiple cancer treatment drugs, reporting back to physicians which has worked the most effectively. This data can help medical teams narrow down the best and potentially most successful course of treatment.
