Management of technology and its influence on nursing care

Currently, much nursing care adheres to a specific biomedical paradigm within the positivist framework. However, sometimes nursing care cannot be adapted to numerous human or vital conditions affecting our patients, their families or the environment in which nurses work. An specific example of these nursing interventions are those applied in intensive care units (ICU) where there is a large amount of technology and nursing care is specialized. Several questions that arise are whether the above-mentioned specialization is inherent to nurse care, whether technology management forms part of nursing care, whether this care has a non-nursing origin, and what is the source of nursing knowledge. The present article aims to provide basic knowledge to distinguish the nursing care performed in the ICU within the 2 predominant paradigms in current nursing: the biomedical and the holistic paradigms. The characteristics of nursing care in both paradigms are described and an integrated vision of these 2 paradigms and of nursing care with and without the use of technology is provided.