Mary Joy Garcia-Dia: Shaping the future of nursing through AI (Healthcare Informatics)
By Cristina DC Pastor
A registered nurse for more than three decades, Mary Joy Garcia-Dia has witnessed how the healthcare landscape has evolved and how technology has redesigned the way doctors and nurses interact and manage medical decisions with their patients through healthcare informatics and decision support systems like AI.
To a layman, for instance, the use of clipboards to note down patient information has now been replaced by a system that is generated by machines known as Artificial Intelligence (AI) augmenting human intelligence and critical thinking.
She explained how AI has revolutionized healthcare: “While the nurse or doctor is interacting with the mother of a patient, they can see patient’s past medical history and any change from the last time the patient was brought to the hospital using the electronic medical record. We are already interacting with ‘Alexa’ in our daily life and imagine its use in healthcare with alert reminders like going to doctor or taking our pills specially for hypertensive or diabetic patients.”
Garcia-Dia currently serves as the program director for Nursing Informatics at New York-Presbyterian Hospital (NYPH), where she oversees the integration of nursing science with computer and information science. Her role involves leveraging analytics and decision support systems to combine medical and nursing decision-making, ultimately improving the quality of patient care and promoting safety.
The use of AI may have started way back in the late 1950s to 1970s, she told The FilAm. But it was only in recent years that its adoption was accelerated in healthcare. As evidenced in pop culture, AI is seen as posing a threat to our way of life, for instance, portending to alter the way news is delivered and is viewed as a risk to privacy and its ethical use.
Garcia-Dia herself became fascinated with expert systems as an Intensive Care Unit nurse at Bellevue Hospital in the 1990s. Her exposure to technology, however, began much earlier.
“I was really good at science in high school. I was interested in robots,” she said. She recalled using a picture of a robot as part of her classroom presentation and posed the question, ‘What would the future look like with robots?’ In school, she was the first to use a typewriter, which showcased her as an early adapter.
At Bellevue, she witnessed the “transformative power of technology” in healthcare, particularly through the use of physiological monitors and computerized documentation systems. She quickly adapted to these advancements, recognizing their potential to improve efficiency, especially in high-pressure environments like the ICU.
A nursing graduate at 19 years old
Garcia-Dia earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from St. La Salle University in Bacolod at the adolescent age of 19. While she passed the licensing exams, she could not practice because she did not meet the age requirement of 21 years to legally work as a registered nurse in the Philippines. She found a nursing job at the private clinic of a cosmetic doctor when she came to see him for rashes on her limbs. When he learned she was a nurse, he invited her to work for him. Her tasks involved giving injections to patients suffering from fungal infections.
When she came of age, she was hired as a civilian staff nurse at the Philippine Naval Station Fort San Felipe in Cavite City. Later, Garcia-Dia was called to active service in the military as a 2nd Lieutenant but made the choice to work in the U.S.
She was recruited in the Philippines to work as a medical-surgical nurse at Bellevue in New York City in 1988. After a year she was promoted to the head nurse position at a young age of 22. At the time, she also worked as a per diem nurse at Cabrini Medical Center.
“I bought a condo. I needed to pay my mortgage,” she shared with a laugh.
“I was an ICU nurse for 10 years at Bellevue when all this integration came about in 1992,” she said. “I was really impressed because we’re already using computer documentation. We didn’t do manual entries anymore.”
Throughout her career – from Bellevue/Cabrini to Hospital for Special Surgery, Columbia Doctors/NYP, Mount Sinai and now New York Presbyterian — Garcia-Dia has been at the forefront of integrating technology into nursing practice. She has been instrumental in the adaption of remote patient monitoring and virtual nursing as newer models of care. Her book, “Project Management in Nursing Informatics,” was published in 2019 where she authored chapters on Simulation, Virtual Learning, and Digital Health Equity. Her research dissertation conducted in the Philippines looked at how text messaging can promote early child immunization in rural areas.
Witnessing childbirth
Garcia-Dia grew up the younger sibling in a middle-class family in Bago City. Her father and older brother were both in the military, her mother an elementary school teacher. When she was 14, her aunt nurse invited her to witness a woman in labor in a provincial hospital.
“You get past the yucky thing and then you hear the baby cry,” she said. “You realize how amazing it was to give life. That’s when I said to myself I’m probably going to be a nurse.”
The Dia family finds joy in outdoor activities like hiking, skiing, biking, and canoeing. She shares with her husband, a graphic designer, an enthusiasm for technology. Her daughter, is currently in California working in the fashion industry and preparing for her upcoming wedding.
Through her leadership in the field of Nursing Informatics and being an early implementor of innovation, Garcia-Dia is not just following her dream of being a nurse; she’s actively shaping the future of nursing.
(C) The FilAm 2024
)