Nurses need to address Y2K as a patient-care issue and take the lead in advocating change. Y2K issues for nursing The date-field's ubiquity in health care means that few things won't be affected by the Y2K bug. Despite the fact that many administrators see their organizations as part of an integrated delivery network with care across the continuum, most remain acute-centric. But the Y2K bug is a problem for all patient-information systems, no matter where they're deployed in the organization. Because nurses provide much of the care in ambulatory settings such as home health care, nurses need to push for Y2K compliancy for the systems they use.
Health care is extremely fragmented.
Companies and systems exchange complex, precise, and critical information. No standardized language exists to describe the administration or outcomes of patient care. In the midst of this information maelstrom, the Y2K bug enters. Nurses might argue that procuring medical supplies and transmitting claims data occur outside the realm of patient care and therefore are the business of other departments. You bet it would.