During the last decade, there has been a major advance in digital transformation within health settings. As a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, and taking into account the need for care globalization, health organizations have started to state their interest in technology. For example, Sikandar et al. (1) presented the increasing trend towards the use of social networks, Big Data analysis, and artificial intelligence in the health industry, in order to improve healthcare. However, they also suggest that, regardless of technological advances and the current social pressure to incorporate them into daily clinical practice, “digital innovation in the health area is still limited and slow, particularly due to the digital gap.”

In this global technological immersion we are experiencing, we ask this question as nursing professionals: What can the digital transformation of healthcare offer to us? In order to answer this question, we must refer to the practical utility and potential benefit of technology. In this regard, it is foreseen that the use of technological means will offer patients a greater access to information and services and, therefore, more closeness to their professionals of reference. Besides, it must be taken into account that the health approaches using e-health or m-health can be a revulsive, as well as support for direct and face-to-face care. A boost in this healthcare offered online should be promoted without a loss in face-to-face care, adapting the need to each person’s idiosyncrasy, and assessing the risk-benefit entailed.

Therefore, having underlined the importance of digital transformation in health, are we aware of the position of Spain regarding research in the area of digital technology in healthcare? Sidankar et al. (1) highlight that most of the research focused on digital technology in the health area, as well as its implementation, has been conducted in more economically developed countries. The United Kingdom, the United States and Australia are the countries where this research is more encouraged. We must point out that Spain is not among the 15 countries most advanced in digital technologies. This fact shows the need to set our objectives in digital transformation, in order to achieve a development consistent with the current trend.

Electronic mental health or e-mental health are also booming. The use of mobile applications and internet in the mental health setting is increasingly more acknowledged, and according to some authors, it represents a cultural change in psychiatric care (2). This change in the way to treat patients allows nurses to empower them so that they can exercise better control of their disease process. In this sense, different academic publications have shown that persons with mental conditions are willing to incorporate technology into their treatment, also reporting higher control and better follow-up (3). Regarding the use of digital means, it is relevant to know that, according to a survey conducted by the National Institute of Statistics in November 2022, almost all persons from 16 to 74 years of age (94.5%) had used internet in the previous last three months (4).
On the other hand, the Nurse Specialist in Mental Health plays an important role to achieve that psychiatric patients take an active role in their care, to avoid them falling into apathy, and to promote activities where they feel involved and empowered. In this sense, the ability to develop our skills is in our hands, through innovation and research, so that we can give an answer to the needs for health self-management by our patients. We must search for technological resources to make daily work easier, a better management of the activities related to our profession, and the ability to grant persons a higher power for managing their care.

Nursing professional practice has been evolving and systematically generating a body of knowledge of its own. The models and theories developed over time, derived of nursing practice and research, represent the main elements in the nursing paradigm which currently prevails. Progress in the nursing discipline occurs when the outcomes obtained in research cannot be explained by framing them into a specific paradigm. Thus, there is a “crisis” which ends up in a scientific revolution or a shift in paradigm.

In the current moment, the nursing area forms part mainly of the school of thought known as Paradigm of Transformation. In this setting, the person is understood as an indivisible whole. Care is distributed according to their priorities, giving them the ability to participate, with a direct connection with the setting. We are talking about the person being influenced by the social setting, but also by culture (5). We must point out that the nursing discipline is focused on the paradigm of transformation in the academic setting. However, some other paradigms still persist in clinical practice, such as the Paradigm of Categorization, more focused on the disease than on the person (5). Therefore, it is suggested that different paradigms can coexist according to the setting where we are. On the other hand, Olivé Ferrer and Isla Pera (6) have claimed that there is a need to adapt care and, therefore, teaching and research, to the paradigm that can provide adequate answers to the health / disease processes. In this sense, the digital revolution previously discussed can be understood as a change in the form of care. We are immersed in an age of advance and prosperity for the nursing profession. There are many social leaders who have raised their voice demanding that nurses take on leadership in care. We are in the middle of a debate on the need for changes in the Spanish health system, advocating for nurses to access higher levels in politics and health management, in order to contribute to decision making that takes into account the relevant role of nurses in the healthcare setting (7). Leadership must be achieved through the development of our skills, and moving forward must entail the implementation of new methods and the fight against immobility.

For all these reasons, we can ask ourselves if this need for innovation, research and implementation of new techniques and technology, with the aim to improve care and health self-management, might be directing our discipline towards one of those “anomalies or crises” that will cause a new shift in paradigm for our profession. On the other hand, from the Mental Health Nursing specialty we must work for this long-awaited change, for the empowerment of our patients. We fight against paternalism and for a person-centred model, transforming their vision of the disease, previously directed by the healthcare staff, towards a new way to manage their own health through the use of new technologies.