In 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) had decided to designate 2020 the International Year of the Nurse and Midwife, 200 years after the birth of Florence Nightingale. The news had been received with enthusiasm by Nursing and Midwifery Associations around the world. It was a decision by the WHO, that nurses and midwifes viewed as an appreciation of the tremendous and impactful work that they undertake across the disease continuum, across settings and diseases. Nursing has come a long way since that initial vision that Nightingale had of how the discipline could be.
Nurses and midwives over the years have systematically acquired advanced knowledge and skills, allowing them to evolve to advanced independent practitioners and consultants that in many occasions hold a leading role in the care of those affected by the disease within an interprofessional and multidisciplinary context. The evolution of nursing and midwifery had not been only within the clinical and educational context but it extended to include research. Groundbreaking research studies have been recorded around the world producing evidence for practice changing and for optimizing the care provided to patients.
The dawn of 2020 however, with the SARS-CoV-2 rapidly spreading all over the world has made it clear that any celebrations had to be placed on hold. Nursing and midwifery once more in the record of history, had been called to sail through the Symplegades and excel in what they do best, humanely care for those in need by protecting the health of the vulnerable and assisting the ill to fully recover. A task that had proven to be a Sisyphean one, with the challenges in the successful management of the pandemic being constantly increasing. In this new reality the nurses and midwifes had to make significant sacrifices including the ultimate sacrifice, that of their own lives. On January 13, 2021, the International Council of Nurses (ICN) announced that the number of confirmed nurse deaths now exceeds 2,200, and with high levels of infections in the nursing workforce.
The pandemic sparked new challenges and new opportunities for innovative solutions in practice (among other areas such as education). With the onset of the pandemic the process of shifting clinical care to telemedicine visits had been hastened. It therefore became essential to learning information and communication technologies for the exchange of valid information. As a result of the pandemic many boundaries were pushed back and opportunities were constantly being explored. Utilizing telemedicine in areas that were once considered potentially unsafe for its use in healthcare has become the new normal.
It is apt and timely that the textbook Developing and Utilizing Digital Technology in Healthcare for Assessment and Monitoring is published at the sunset of such a challenging and landmark year. This book is innovative in that it brings together a wide range of authors from diverse disciplines and professions in an attempt to provide a comprehensive perspective to the topic from development to utilization. The book prepares those in the designing end of technological solutions as well as those in the delivering end in how to optimally exploit the full potential that technology offers within the healthcare context.
Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to carry on that counts
Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
