Leveraging AI and Technology for Comprehensive Research: Tips for Researchers and Students

The research-to-practice gap.

Today’s rapidly changing health care settings require medical and nursing professionals and students to remain up to date on trending research, topics, and evidence for guiding practice. While this may sound fundamental for nurses, multiple barriers make this incredibly challenging. Factors such as limited time, large volumes of new research to sift through, and experience with reading and analyzing research contribute to what is known as the research-to-practice gap. This blog post will explore how to harness AI and technology to gain a high-level and comprehensive overview of a research topic of interest.

Define the topic.

Before leveraging AI tools, it’s critical to develop the focus of the topic of interest. It is helpful to frame or organize your topic or area of interest to ensure the search is thorough. For example, you could use the PICO format (patient/population, intervention, comparison, and outcomes) to phrase your question or area of interest.

Let’s say you want to learn more about skin damage related to external urinary devices for adult females. A good PICO question might be: Among adult females in acute care settings, what type of skin damage occurs when using external urinary devices compared to those who do not use these devices?

Search the literature.

Searching academic databases can be […]

2024-02-02T09:40:10-05:00February 1st, 2024|artificial intelligence (AI), Nursing, nursing research, Technology|0 Comments
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AI and Nursing: Are We Ready?

Three considerations about nursing and AI.

Lisiane Pruinelli

In my role as a nursing professor under the University of Florida Artificial Intelligence Initiative (ai.ufhealth.org) and in leading several national and international efforts, I apply what I’ve learned in years of clinical and educational experience to articulate the implications of AI for the nursing profession.

Doing so, I see three broad considerations that will affect the profession’s future. 1) The need to take into account the history of the nursing profession and the fact we are the most trusted profession in the US, 2) The question of how we can best incorporate new technologies and/or ideas into the care we deliver every day, and 3) The issue of how we can build the new generation of nurses while also training current nurses in order that they can play a role at the forefront of the AI/health care revolution while continuing to be strong advocates for safe and ethical care.

These three considerations are elaborated below:

2024-01-25T10:10:18-05:00January 16th, 2024|artificial intelligence (AI), Nursing, Technology|1 Comment
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Can Nursing Students Benefit from Using Artificial Intelligence?

A series of surprising developments including the release of generative chatbots like ChatGPT has rapidly increased awareness of the growing capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI), sending shock waves through the research, academic, and nursing education community. As a nurse educator, I initially became interested in the power of AI (in all its forms) to speed the research process and improve investigator workflows. Over time, it became evident that nursing students might benefit from AI in their study methods and when acquiring nursing knowledge to support their academic success.

Photo by John Schnobrich/Unsplash

To better understand this, it is helpful to consider the three fundamental stages in which nursing students acquire knowledge and explore how AI can play a pivotal role in each stage. This blog post will include an overview of AI-powered tools with example prompts to guide students’ academic efforts.

Preparation–Cognitive Stage

In this stage, nursing students are mastering knowledge foundational to nursing practice, including remembering and retaining facts and essential concepts. Students find themselves in this stage when they are learning new content. Open-access large language models (LLMs) in the form of chatbots can support students in this stage by providing concise summaries of pathophysiology, pharmacology, and disease management. AI can also serve […]

2024-01-25T10:18:12-05:00November 15th, 2023|artificial intelligence (AI), Nursing, Technology|1 Comment
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AI and Nursing: Recommended Reading in AJN’s October Issue

The October issue of AJN is now live.

This month’s AJN Reports takes a close look at how artificial intelligence is being used in health care—and why nurses must be involved in its development and implementation.

“Current and Emerging Applications of Fecal Microbiota Transplantation” describes the use of this procedure to treat recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection, nursing management of individuals undergoing it, and its future applications. CE credit is available.

To learn more about the potential oral complications of adjuvant endocrine therapy in breast cancer survivors, the authors of the October Original Research article compared aspects of oral health in those who were taking the therapy with those who were not.

“Activism Is an Essential Nursing Role” discusses the rationale for and roots of political activism in nursing, the values that shape it, and the importance of nursing’s stance on health-related policies.

How can nurses best attend to seriously ill patients’ existential needs? Read “Perspectives on Palliative Nursing: Existential Care in Daily Nursing Practice” for an overview of key priorities.

See also the extensive health care news sections, the Journal Watch and Drug Watch sections, a Specialty Spotlight column highlighting critical […]

2024-01-25T10:51:20-05:00September 25th, 2023|artificial intelligence (AI), Technology|1 Comment
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Telehealth in Rural Nursing: Embracing Change for Better Patient Outcomes

rural road Photo by Bradyn Shock on Unsplash

When I first heard of telehealth services coming to our rural hospital, no one was a bigger skeptic than I was.

Perhaps the main reason was the way I was educated as a nurse and how I learned to practice as an APRN. Honestly, I am “old school” in every way possible. My first thought was, “This is not good practice; how could it be? Won’t there be shortcuts? How about the lack of a physical exam? How can you properly physically evaluate someone over telehealth? How can you take safe care of patients and avoid missing something that’s potentially life-threatening if you can’t touch them? How could someone a thousand miles away help me way up in the mountains of the Eastern Panhandle? What could they know about the community here and their needs?”

These were just a few of the questions and concerns I had regarding telehealth coming to our rural community access hospital. When we assess our patients, we not only to listen to their heart and lungs, look into their eyes, hear their voice, feel the temperature of their skin, but we connect. We are building trust and ensuring support with looking, listening, and feeling.

The […]

2023-10-03T10:04:41-04:00August 25th, 2023|digital health, Nursing, nursing roles, patient experience, Patients|5 Comments
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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