title: Bioinstrumentation: twentieth century slave.
abstract: Instrumentation represents an extension of human ability to sense, to monitor, and to record data for interpretation. The devices can supplement failing physiologic functions. They are the products of fertile imaginations, tedius and fastidious development, and scientific and technologic knowledge. As such, the devices have infiltrated health care. The time is ripe for nursing actively to take advantage of the capacities and potentials of these tools, which slavishly and untiringly carry out tasks and relay information that can contribute to the well-being of patients and the advancement of nursing.
mesh_terms: D001674:Bioelectric Energy Sources; D001698:Biomedical Engineering / Q000295:instrumentation*; D006354:Heart, Artificial; D006801:Humans; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic / Q000295:instrumentation; D013686:Telemetry