You might wonder why we are including a chapter on caring as we discuss the future of nursing informatics. We believe that nurses are taught to care and hone their ability to care for patients as they practice; however, considering technologies that can be disruptive, the art of caring can become compromised or lost. We want to refocus nurses on the art of caring while enhancing the science of nursing using informatics tools.
We challenge you to reflect on what you know and what you are learning and to think of where you are going in relation to your own practice and nursing informatics knowledge. Just as our professional and personal lives overlap at times, so do our social and professional informatics and networking experiences. We cannot assume that what we do or use in our personal lives is appropriate or even useful in our professional practice. This section begins with Chapter 24, The Art of Caring in Technology-Laden Environments, which considers the heart of what nurses do-caring.
The section ends with Chapter 25, Our Expanding Realities and the Metaverse. In this chapter, you will examine emerging technologies that are evolving our sense of reality that will affect the future of health care, nursing practice, nursing informatics, and patient care. We want you to pause and reflect on nursing in the context of informatics and, of course, reality. To help you consider the disruptive forces affecting our realities, we have provided a glimpse of patient experiences in future health care: Brad, a virtual assistive service robot; big data; three-dimensional printing; care bots; cyborgs; the metaverse; and artificial intelligence. Do these technologies truly become part of our reality and influence our worldview? As we are informed through the use of nursing informatics and expand our knowledge and technology-infused practice, we affect our reality, the reality of the healthcare industry, and the reality of our patients.
Once you finish reading the final chapter of this text, reconsider the Foundation of Knowledge model (Figure VII-1). Reflect on reality and how it relates to the four areas of the model: (1) knowledge acquisition, (2) knowledge processing, (3) knowledge generation, and (4) knowledge dissemination and feedback.
Figure VII-1 Foundation of Knowledge Model
An illustration depicts the structure of the Foundation of Knowledge model.
The model features a three-dimensional illustration of three entwined, inverted cones labeled K A, K G, and K D. The three labeled cones converge to create a new cone labeled K P. Encircling these cones is a feedback loop. The entire composition is situated on a platform featuring repeated words such as information, data, bytes, and bits. K A indicates knowledge acquisition; K D indicates knowledge dissemination; K G indicates knowledge generation; and K P denotes knowledge processing.
You are challenged to ask, “How can I use my wisdom to help create the nursing realities, the reality of the healthcare industry, and the reality of our patients in the future?”