The future is a sharp 90° turn

Abstract

The future of health informatics has no bounds; the areas of consideration encompass technologies, both hardware and software, processes, knowledge creation, delivering services, and surviving the relentless march of time and change. Technologies of all kinds will continue to evolve, and healthcare, like other industries and domains of society will continue to encounter evolution in terms determining how to interact with new technologies and manage the impact of new technologies. This chapter will focus on the future context of nursing informatics, present scenarios for reflection and propose a “survival kit” providing nurses entering the work force with choices and which contributes in a meaningful way to shaping the elusive interim state which was yesterday’s future. Without being too philosophical, the future can only be realized in the present.