Professional nursing in a technical system.

Abstract

We live in an age characterized by rapid technological advances and equally rapid change. Technical systems are expanding and they will increasingly dominate the health care setting of the future in all Western industrialized nations. The future shock that Toffler (1970) wrote about affects not only the consumers of health care but also the providers. This paper discusses four principles that describe a technical health care system. Taken together, these principles provide a framework with which the role, cost effectiveness and education of the professional nurse may be analyzed.