The Increasing Adoption of IT of the Healthcare of the Patients - Research Paper Example

Introduction With the increasing population and rapidly mounting employment problems, another critical dilemma that the countries face is the provision of health care services. The world is becoming a global village and advancement in technology has provided a lot of solutions. Humans have used technology in all walks of daily life, for making their lives easier. Therefore now we can see that a huge number of health organizations have also realized the need for capitalizing on technology to provide effective service to their patients. Day by day, as the requirement for technological advancement in medicine is increasing, the technology has always been coming up with new inventions to meet this overwhelming demand and desire to ease the patient’s pain. Transforming healthcare quality through information technology Previously, it has been seen that the healthcare organizations seldom invested at an appropriate level in implementation of technology as compared to other service oriented industries. These organizations relied highly on the time and energies of their staff, resulting in inefficient and unreliable processes of record management. The shortage of being technologically pronounced, overwhelmingly led to a lot of costly and time-taking solutions, significantly affecting the patients’ chances of survival. The problems faced by health organizations regarding present structure of services has strengthened the need for capitalizing on technology. Healthcare providers are impatiently requiring modernization in order to to address the challenging problems that are increasing daily in their origination from the past few years. The poor quality and limited application of older systems can seriously jeopardize the best health care facilities and hinder the overall growth of organization. The need of embracing and capitalizing the new technology for making the lives of patients better is being increasingly felt in almost all such organizations. Data Management Taking account of the increase in the number of patients, the major area of application for the modern technology in the health care organizations is that of data management. The increase in patients accompanied by a corresponding upliftment in the data volumes, regarding the patient’s history and other documentation, an organization needs to maintain a database of all its patients in order to provide prompt and improved service to them. Creating and maintaining such a huge database isn’t an easy task. This type of data management requires not only a lot of time, but also results in increased cost. The administrative application of data management techniques are adopted for supervision and organization of patient’s personal records, clinical records and final expense-calculations. Now the daily operations like, data entries of patient’s arrival, his records of laboratory reports can entirely be computerize, improving efficiency of healthcare service providers. With the help of the information systems, being developed by different software organizations a lot of assistance has been formed to cope up with the problem of handling huge quantity of data of numerous patients. Typically, they provide simple solution for the cost effective maintenance of patient’s records with all the information at the fingertips of health care staff. To name one of such type of system is the RMRS (Regenstrief Medical Record System), which was developed in the 1970’s for a minor level data management, but is now the oldest, most widely used and the most extensive computerized medical record system. ChartMaxx is another efficient data organizing system, being frequently used in facilitating health care management. However, if we view the previous softwares, developed for the purpose of data management and retrieval, it would be quite disappointing to see that these softwares, instead of helping to reduce the workload of information sharing and maintaining, have created an overloaded and weak infrastructure becoming an obstacle in the growth of the healthcare organizations rather than contributing in its expansion. They included such programs that weren’t optimally aligned with clinical workflows, and the patients as well as the medical staff, both suffered just because of the poor level of healthcare technology delivering below their expectations. Owing to the complexity of older technological solutions, the present scenario and developments in the technology sector, not only provide opportunities to the software industries for developing up to date programs for the enhancement of their services, but also pursue the older IT system developers to struggle towards delivering an efficient and structured flow of information, designed to address the providers requirements along with the patient’s. It is becoming increasingly essential to improve the quality of services being offered to the patients to meet the level of flexibility they require in today’s world. This can be hugely facilitated by the recent advancements occurring in technology. Now instead of the traditional system owned by the healthcare IT, which was only for the employees with special technological skills, it has now moved on to a more generalized approach covering the problems regarding the patient care. Thus now with the help of the advanced information systems, a more patient-centric approach is being developed. The best-suited application for attaining this goal is the provision of efficient flow of information system. The new healthcare IT system now offers easy access to information regarding patients care, wherever and whenever required, providing a prompt service in case of emergency. It also facilitates core medical processes and has allocated standards in order to keep a co-ordination among the different processes going on. In order to reflect upon the success of such implementation of IT, in a recent article posted on AME info, Richard Shediac, the Vice President of Booz Allen leading the Healthcare Practice in the Middle East commented; "With increased investment in modern IT systems as well as new facilities, organizations are improving healthcare for patients, and raising it to a world-class standard". This should be the driving policy and aim of all healthcare organizations as the application of IT systems ensures the improvement of direly needed infrastructure for better health of people worldwide. Strategic planning for organizational changes Besides analyzing and evaluating the advantages of implementation of technology in the health-care sector, one must also be aware of its effective usage along with the type of organization it’s being owned by. Thus the organizations must also develop a strategy for the efficient use of technology alongside with their organizational goals. The ultimate motivation behind this revolutionary implementation of IT in the healthcare services is the requirement of excellent standard of services that are being offered to the patients. This in turn has also triggered the growth of a more sophisticated EMR (the electronic medical record). An EMR is a digital form of recording that is able to keep a complete track of a patient’s entire medical history. This successfully leads to facilitation in direct diagnosis without unnecessary delay and in taking effective therapeutic decisions whenever that patient’s primary details are entered in the healthcare system. But in order to obtain effective results in their healthcare service through the installation of EMR in their organizations, the healthcare service providers must be developing the appropriate infrastructure for the purpose of proper distribution and co-ordination through their networks. This therefore highlights the importance of the co-ordination that the organizations must possess among the information and the resources that provides access to this information. Same is the case with EMR, although it’s a very powerful tool having the capacity to operate efficiently on its own, it still needs to be combined properly, highlighting the essential link which organization have to have among information and the availability of information. “While the EMR on its own is a powerful tool, its combination with other networked applications ensures availability of the appropriate information; where and when needed, at the point of care” (United Arab Emirates, 2008). In fact this indicates towards the fact that how much essential it is to maintain IT standards for the healthcare organizations according to the programs they would be using to improve their services, in order to make the best use of all the hardware and software resources, that would be facilitating them (the providers). The other reason for doing this is because of the frequent advancements being made time by time in the field of technology. Therefore they have to maintain criteria of their own, so that the state-of-the-art technology shouldn’t get wasted by them. Setting proper standards also helps in effective co-ordination between the systems. It defines the criteria and procedure of the communication and storing process of the medical information in the network. As a result the concern for developing proper standards is increasing day by day and thus one can see the fruitful results produced by setting up such standards in the form of its ease-of-use and high level of integration across various applications. One such impact could be seen through the increasing demand of technology in the healthcare organization which is a result of the increased capacity of such organizations. This is mainly because the healthcare organizations are properly using these technological resources and thus see more need cutting-edge solutions according to their clinical and business strategies requirement. Secondly through properly analyzing and building the link among the IT and the business strategies, organizations are getting great help in making effective investment decisions regarding the technology implementation which in turn proves to be safeguarding the interests of the main stakeholders; the medical personnel and the patients. Applications beside patient record system Apart from the use traditional use of IT systems, in, hospital and healthcare for administrative purposes such as scheduling and billing, now there is increasing concern towards utilizing these advancements for patient care. Both interdisciplinary and intra disciplinary communication have became effective and appropriate. The different decision-makers involved within the field of health care, e.g. the nurses, doctors, surgeons and pharmacists can coordinate in a timely and effective manner to serve the patients in their best potentials. Moreover with technology in their access, the doctors can easily and more securely share the information about patients, with other relevant people involved. This helps in facilitating collaboration of doctors to compare and share results in treating specific conditions over time and hence improve patient satisfaction. Thus the day by day increasing demand for the technology implementation, the healthcare organizations are now more focusing on the care of patients, seeking ways to provide satisfy them by delivering excellent quality services. This has somewhat became the main concern and the competitive edge for the modern healthcare organizations. In doing so, these organizations have been provided great support by the multiple softwares applicable to the potency of their services. These advanced systems, allow easy and deliberate access of every individual whether from the domains of pharmacy, nursing or radiology, to the relevant medical record. This feasibility helps in assessing treatment plus care coming via various departments which participate for the caring of that individual, hence increasing the standards and quality of services being delivered. The basic medical information of the patient can be delivered by the nurse, using the remote computer, to the doctor in any hospital of the world. The doctor can help in diagnosing the patient and can apply his sound knowledge to make correct decision about its cure. Hence through simple access to information and proper co-ordination among the hardware resources they have managed improve the flow of communication which has finally resulted in, mobilized access points of information which have colossally improved the standard of patient care, thus resulting in high goodwill of these organizations. Centergy is one of such technological solutions that helps in connecting the different stakeholders of healthcare sector and promise the ultimate care of patients. It provides the much needed platform for sharing the details about a patient to different parts of the world and enabling the professionals to provide effective solutions. Hence the system’s portal is a great tool in connecting professionals all over the world and enabling the spread of their expertise wherever the need arises. Such solutions to the application of health care facilities, reminds us of the benefits of global village, the world has turned into. Not only the organizations have been benefitted by the employment of technology at their healthcare centers, also the physicians and doctors have managed to acquire great support in their procedure of diagnosis and decision making for the treatment of a particular patient. Now they are better able to cater the needs of patients in a more personalized manner and making their experiences of patient care more useful. As a result the increasing demands placed on them, can be fulfilled through the wiser use of IT and also enhanced potency for future advancement can be ensured. Thriving information technology Furthermore as the competition grows among the healthcare organizations, there is an increasing opportunity for the software industry in this area, to find their efficacious application. This makes it crystal clear that the proper integration of their clinical services, using the convolute IT systems and also ensuring the development of a suitable strategy for proper co-ordination among the organization and technological resources, these organizations would be providing the necessary tools and information to the employees, i.e.: the physicians, nurses and other medical staff, to deliver standardized services. One such IT company dedicated for improving healthcare services only, is the United States based organization named Mckesson Provider Technologies. It is a healthcare IT Company, and delivers comprehensive solutions to the field of healthcare in order to facilitate them to provide a differentiated set of services to their patients. More of such efforts have been planned and designed by different companies, considering the overall requirements of a modern Healthcare Facility and its growing need for coordination with all varied disciplines. These range from the ones designed for enhanced workflow to the ones planned for reducing the fatal and nonfatal errors. Hospital information Management System (HIMS), Teleradiology, Picture archiving and communication system (PACS) are some of the information technological tools frequently employed to integrate and enhance the various fields in the field of health management. The Hospital Information & Management System (HIMS) has proved to be one of the most efficient, reliable and affordable solution to the variety of needs in the field of health care provision. It provides an integrated and modernized facility, reducing the potential errors in medical billing. It is designed to create a balance between quality of care & efficiency, and meet the ever increasing data management needs of a health care organization. The unlimited benefits of HIMS and other systems have narrowed the gap between actual and virtual, and have succeeded in achieving the highest productivity leaving no room for errors. Technology for everyone Now coming to one of the major problems that needs to be addressed in order to afford a mass level implementation of technology, still there are areas which require improved health care service. This mainly includes the rural areas that are somewhat mostly neglected of the technological advancements done in the health sector. They still face problems in getting the ambulance and timely treatment for a disease. Secondly in rural areas the doctors face the problem of a weak administration as well. The health care facilities of any area or locality significantly depict the importance being placed on the improved lives of the people of the area. Therefore assessing and analyzing the problems faced by the people of rural areas, step by step, first we have to simplify the: Administration The physicians in rural areas have to deal with a lot of bureaucracy regarding the health insurance, which wastes a lot of time and creates unnecessary hurdle in the prompt treatment of the patients. Besides their already happens to be a scarcity of skilled physicians in the rural areas and when the few doctors present over, they would be all crowded by the poor administrative problems, the patients are the one who suffers the most in this scenario. Therefore the health insurance reform has now with the help of technology has simplified and streamlined the administrative procedures, including reducing and standardizing paper work. This means the implementation of an electronic health record system, would be providing the doctors ample of time to treat their patients of the rural population effectively and efficiently with an improved level of services. Quality Another major area of concern is the quality of health care services that is available to the people living of rural areas. for this purpose the health insurance reform have taken into consideration the Health IT system, which would be measuring the level of quality and will determine certain standards for it and whether they are being met or not. Through this it would be ensuring that a high quality of care is being provided to the patients and the necessary information they require to make a choice for a particular healthcare provider. Investments in Telehealth The health care facilitates are a part of global needs and should cater the needs of all the people. Even the rural areas need access to health care and in this regard the IT can serve as an important vehicle for helping the organizations in bringing about an improvement in the kind of healthcare that the rural people have. Finally the accessibility of health staff and services happens to be one more problem that requires attention as too many rural areas lack access to specialized treatment. The distant locations of these areas pose serious problems in the ability of health care personnel. However the recent advancements in technology have enabled these professionals to diagnose and communicate with the patients at various medical services, which leads to the healthcare being available for each person. But the challenges faced by several rural areas in adopting IT which includes financial restrictions, inadequate infrastructure, and restricted availability to capital and limited trained workforce should also be considered. Apart from that, the increasing adoption of IT can also lead to major contributions in the general overview of the healthcare of the patients. Healthcare professionals need to comprehend the capability of improving the availability toward medical facilities by means of technological enhancements for instance, telemedicine, in order to meet the future demands and hence benefit the patient’s lives. Therefore Health improvement reform invests in Telehealth technologies, as part of the domain of health information technology in order to enable the people of rural areas to facilitate from the knowledge and expertise of the physicians outside their neighborhood community, thereby increasing the range of services that they can avail. Some of them are Telehealth technologies are videoconferencing unit, Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) technology, and Internet Protocol (IP) networks. These technologies, making use of the cutting edge peripherals and the best of telecommunication knowledge have greatly blurred the limitation of boundaries and have managed to provide an easy means of communication across the continents. The Healthcare Information Technology proves to be huge support in providing the population of rural areas with satisfactory healthcare services through enhanced and flexible means of productivity, by providing the necessary facilities over there, and encouraging the potential physicians to go there and render their services to the people over there. The greater vulnerability of these rural people to different diseases can surely be reduced by such reforms. With time the technology tends to be the structural component of healthcare which greatly contributes and is contributing to the improvement of the current healthcare systems. Additionally it is empowering the physicians to have a command over their relevant information along with the control of the information resources that are being provided to them by the help of technology implementation. As a matter of fact, these physicians can now play a strong role in the effective usage of technology, no matter where they are practicing, in their private clinics or hospitals or any other healthcare organizations. They happen to be the strong support for the technological evolution in the Health care industry. For the healthcare industry to progress and advance, and to fulfill the ever changing requirements, and in the due course increase the chances of human safety and life longevity, new technologies need to be adopted. Various technological improvements allow for unprecedented advantages. Every healthcare organization requires being aware of the most up-to-date advancements in technology, due to the impact they will have on patients’ health and their life expectancy. Without the understanding of the different components of the technological systems and their careful adoption in different applications in the field of health care, their skillful use can never be made. Also the clear understanding of the various the intricacies and complexities of an efficient health care management facility, can only result in developing an efficient solution for them. References Berger, R. and J. Kichak. 2004. Computerized Physician Order Entry: Helpful or Harmful? Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association 11:100-103. Christine Stuart, 2009. Using Technology to Improve Quality of Care. [Online] Available at: http://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/health_care/using_technology_to_improve_qu.php [Accessed 16 Dec 2009]. Rothfeder, J. 2004. Can IT Save the Healthcare Industry? 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