The Intersection of Cutting-Edge Technology and Compassionate Patient Care (Podcast)

Healthcare is inundated with new technologies, from workflow and documentation tools to virtual patient companions and AI-enabled medical devices. As these systems grow increasingly complex, nurses are learning how to blend clinical expertise with digital fluency to deliver safer, more personalized care.

“We’re seeing technology evolve faster than ever, and nurses are right at the center of that change,” says Matthew Shesko, MSN, NI-BC, NE-BC, Nurse Manager for Nursing Informatics at Cleveland Clinic. “While there’s no question that digital innovations can enhance efficiency and improve outcomes, it's incumbent on caregivers to embrace technology not as a replacement for compassion, but as a tool that strengthens it.”

In this episode of Nurse Essentials, Shesko discusses how — even in a high-tech environment — nurses can ensure that healing remains deeply human.

Click the podcast player above to listen to the episode now, or read on for a short, edited excerpt. Check out more Nurse Essentials episodes at my.clevelandclinic.org/podcasts/nurse-essentials or wherever you get your podcasts.

Podcast excerpt

Podcast host Carol Pehotsky, DNP, RN, NEA-BC: What things should remain true when we're thinking about AI and its safe and ethical use?

Shesko: To remain true, we must always have guardrails. We have to think about how an AI model translates to improved patient care. What's it like to be on the other side of all this...as the patient? As we design new technologies…we should never get away from the art of nursing…physical touch.

Early on in my career, I had a patient who was so nervous…full of anxiety and just sitting in her room. She wasn't anxious because of a diagnosis. There weren’t any machines running or any particular interventions being done. It was just the foreign environment [that made her uncomfortable]. I remember having the opportunity to just sit with her for about 20 minutes and talk. And what I found out is that presence is compassionate medicine.

And so how does all that relate in an AI world? We can't create technology that takes us further away from the bedside. There are definitely clinical use cases for virtual assessments…they’re working tremendously well. But in the inpatient setting, designing or implementing technologies that keep nurses away from the bedside is not where we need to be.

[The goal is to initiate] AI implementations that empower the nurse – agents that help synthesize flow sheets, notes, meds, trends, and interact with the chart to produce a clean, accurate and real-time clinical snapshot in seconds. These things give our nurses clarity. Clarity gives nurses confidence, and confidence positions the nurse to provide better care.

The simple truth is that patients must always remain at the center. We have to continue to lay stethoscopes on patients…continue to physically interact with them. [They need] healing…the human touch. And some of that can't be measured, but you know it's there when it's there. That's our mission at Cleveland Clinic: patient-first, compassionate care.