Researchers: Sivia Barnoy¹, Tal Soffer¹, Sigalit Warshawski¹

Background: The aging of the population requires consideration of the health aspects related to the treatment of this age group. The health system has difficulties providing adequate health care to this age group due to financial barriers and a lack of skilled nurses. The use of technologies appears to be a possible solution to the problem.

Objectives: The study’s goals were to identify emerging technologies that may affect the future nursing care of the elderly-population and to evaluate their impact on the care of this population and the nursing role.

Method: A horizon survey, interviews with experts, an expert survey (Delphi), a nurse survey, and a brainstorming workshop were conducted.

Findings: In the horizon scanning, future trends and technologies were identified that may affect nursing care of the elderly in the community, such as: remote monitoring, mobile applications and robots. In the interviews, 13 existing and emerging technologies were identified that will affect nursing care. In the expert survey, a rating of the impact of these 13 technologies and the time of maturity. Thus, wearable technologies, medical AI applications and fall prevention devices are expected to have a high impact on the needs of the elderly. The nurse survey revealed that nurses are interested in training in wound care technologies, telemedicine and AI-supported applications. The brainstorming, recommendations were that in order to implement technologies it is important to create multi-professional collaborations between the health professions and technology professions.

Conclusions: Medical technologies, for the treatment of the elderly in the community, will come into use in the next five years. Nurses lack knowledge and training for their integration into treatment. It is important to involve nurses from the development stage.

Recommendations: It is important to have broad and dedicated training for nurses in technologies in general and in those for care of the elderly in the community in particular.

Research end date: 09/2023