Abstract
This executive brief instructions paper aims at investigating the challenge of obesity and finding the ways to overcome it employing the newest technologies and technological education programs. The paper will focus on increased popularity of cellphones, tablets, and social media and the opportunity to use them as the tools for preventing growing levels of obesity among both children and adolescents. It will center on the postulates of the Diffusion of Innovations theory as a background for promoting the proposed initiative. Finally, it will explain how to implement technological programs to guarantee that they are equitable and efficient and offer the techniques for estimating their effectiveness for health promotion and behavior changes.
Introduction
Nowadays, due to the fast development of information and communication technology, it plays a paramount role in both nursing practice and patient education. That is why nurses are recommended to be competent in what is known as nursing informatics in order to improve the quality of services and care outcomes (Darvish, Bahramnezhad, Keyhanian & Navidhamidi, 2014).
Moreover, introducing technology to nursing work increases patient safety and is advantageous for preventing various chronic diseases because it can be used not only for organizing workflow but also educating patients and population. This paper will focus on determining the ways to implement the newest technologies into healthcare systems and determining the efficacy of similar changes.
Defining the Scope of the Problem
Health concern under investigation is obesity. The motivation for choosing this medical condition is that obesity is the underlying cause of numerous other diseases such as diabetes, particular types of cancer, hypertension, heart diseases, stroke, etc. (Reilly & Kelly, 2011; Bjorge Engeland, Tverdal & Smith, 2008). Moreover, nowadays, obesity has turned into an epidemic because nearly every third adolescent is obese or overweight (Chen & Wilkosz, 2014). For this reason, it is vital to promote education programs focusing on preventing of obesity and handling its consequences.
Getting Familiar with Technological Educational Program
With the invention of the newest information and communication technologies such as the Internet, social media, smartphones, tablets, computers, etc., it is not surprising that their popularity is constantly growing. Recent researches demonstrate fantastic figures: in the United States, 78% of adolescents have cell phones with 47% of smartphones among them, 23% have tablets, and 93% use a computer either desktop or laptop at home (Madden, Lenhart, Duggan, Cortesi & Gasser, 2013).
For the most part, they deploy cell phones, tablets, and computers for surfing the Web, gaming, and educational purposes. For this reason, it would be beneficial to employ the newest technologies for changing adolescents’ behavior with the shift to leading healthy lifestyle and increasing the levels of physical activities as a primary tool for preventing the problem of obesity and related diseases.
Exploring the Ways to Use Technology for Health Promotion
The primary way to implement the newest technologies into health promotion is to launch and promote educational systems. Because adolescents are most likely to use the Internet for educational purposes, it is significant to design and startup health websites (Darvish et al., 2014). However, it is paramount to keep in mind that the information provided on such websites should be understandable, there should be no massive texts, and every detail should be bright and appealing in order to attract the attention of adolescents. Moreover, it should be noted that the responsibility for promoting such health websites is put on healthcare professionals and parents because adolescents are unlikely to be interested in searching such educational programs themselves.
One of such health websites was already designed and launched by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, and the National Cancer Institute. The initiative is named We Can! (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2016). Its primary objective is to promote improving nutrition habits, increasing the level of physical activities, and reducing screen time.
It can create opportunities for health promotion because, first, it can be easily accessed from any location because of smartphones and tablets popularity. Second, it contains all information necessary for changing behavior and hints such as eat right, be active, reduce screen time, etc. (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2016). Furthermore, it contains information and recommendations for leading healthy lifestyle such as nutrition plans, portion sizes, physical activities guidelines, hints for becoming more active that can be applied to whole family, and more. So, it is an effective preventing tool as well as a method to cope with the challenge of obesity and minimize the risks of related diseases.
Target Population and Potential Barriers to Technological Programs
The technological education program mentioned above was developed for both healthcare professionals and common citizens. In the context of this paper, the primary focus will be made on healthcare professionals because they are urged to educate patients, especially families, who have obese or overweight children. That is why the target population includes all healthcare organizations.
However, there are potential barriers to increasing the popularity of similar technological educational programs. First of all, it is the fact that some healthcare organizations might not be aware of the existence of such programs. Second, they might lack minimally required resources for launching and demonstrating the program to their patients such as funds for designing the websites and access to the newest technologies.
When it comes to patients, the promotion of similar educational programs can face the barrier of not desiring to change and be educated. In most cases, it is the reason for failing to reach the objectives because even if healthcare professionals are educated and provide necessary recommendations, the progress in disease prevention and improving health conditions always depends on patients and their willingness to foster changes.
Using Technologies for Changing Behavior
The proposed technological educational program will definitely benefit common population because it will increase the level of background on obesity and motivate to change the situation for the better. Furthermore, because one of the proposed options is to register and obtain care online with individual nutrition and physical activities plans, launching similar initiatives will increase productivity and performance of healthcare organizations because of reducing queues to see a professional. As of the target population, i.e. healthcare professionals, it is unlikely to change their behavior, but it can be efficient in tailoring interventions towards their patients.
Keeping potential benefits in mind, it is important to mention some of the costs. The only costs involved are the expenses on designing and launching the website, maintaining its flawless operation, and training healthcare professional if necessary. Nevertheless, benefits outweigh the costs because they are onetime expenses and implementing similar programs will not only benefit the patients but also bring a healthcare organization to a higher level of development and providing healthcare services (Darvish et al., 2014).
Diffusion of Innovations Theory and Implementing Technological Educational Programs
The implementation of similar health promotion programs should be viewed in the light of the diffusion of innovations theory. In general, it is beneficial for the better understanding of channels for innovation distribution (Weigel, Rainer, Hazen, Cegielski & Ford, 2012).
It is paramount to realize that success and effectiveness of the proposed platform rely on the channels through which the information about it will be shared. It means that it is not enough to promote it in a healthcare organization. The most influential link between the institution and other people is a common program user. So, developers should pay specific attention to making a website bright and attractive enough as well as efficient to drive the sharing process and gain popularity (Long, Chei & Dion, 2014).
Evaluating Effectiveness of the Proposed Health Promotion Program
The proposed health promotion program is designing and launching health websites. There are several approaches, which can be deployed for evaluating its effectiveness. First, it is vital to estimate the number of people actively using the health website. It will depend on the reliability and credibility of the information provided by the educational program. Second, and most significant, is the estimation of the results of health promotion system, i.e. whether patients are interested in individual nutrition and physical activities plans, whether the percentage of those in similar health conditions became lower once the program was implemented, and, finally, what are the outcomes – long or short-term (Ajie & Chapman-Novakofski, 2013).
Conclusion
To sum up, the proposed educational program is fostering the use of the newest technologies to obtain the access to and browse health website by obese or overweight adolescents. Even though there are some barriers to launching it, following the simplest recommendations such as guaranteeing relevant information presented in short and bright form will undoubtedly make it popular and effective.
References
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