Nurses as a bridge from technology to patients

Health operators make use of technology more and more frequently and with greater confidence and conviction. Many patients, however, seem to distrust and have difficulty in accepting some of the technological applications which are quite widely used in our country in the diagnosis and therapy of many diseases. The role of mediating between patients and technology usually falls to nurses since it is they, not only because they have the appropriate cultural and scientific background but also because they are the personnel who have the closest contact with the patients, who are thus better able to perceive their needs. Therefore, nurses are a bridge connecting, in a positive and useful way, the technological world with the subjectivity of human beings and can help to avoid the risk of "de-humanization" due to the widespread use of machines and instruments in the medical environment. In order to improve communication between society and technology, it would be important to evaluate the problems of patients and the need of specific background for nurses, to provide some degree of technological education in University Nursing Diploma courses. This is the aim of this paper.