information technology

Going less

Can information technology improve a hospital ‘s services , patient safety , and increase profits

Abstract

The health industry has lagged behind many other industries . The technology for switching to electronic medical records has been available for many years . Applications for other areas such as procurement , billing and hospital maintenance can basically be taken of the shelf as many other industries , grocery chains and supermarkets have been using these components for more than a decade

Cost consideration , regulatory controls , patient privacy and lack of inter-operability of available applications has [banner_entry_middle]

prevented wide scale use of the technology . With the reduction in cost of wireless technology and computer hardware required for creating permanent electronic medical records , many hospitals have invested financial resources to reduce operating cost , improve profitability and patient safety . The new government policy announced in January 2006 will accelerate the pace of application of information technology in hospital industry . The less hospitals are however unlikely to arrive in the near future and need not be an aim in itself

Outline

Introduction

Present Status of IT Applications in Health Industry

Benefits of Integrating Information Technology

Electronic Medical Records

Accurate Billing

Removal of Medication Errors

Drug dispensation

Nursing Care

Information Technology in Other Hospital Related Functions

Concerns of Information Technology

Errors at the Speed of Light

Is a Discussions Conclusions

Bibliography

Going less

Can information technology improve a hospital ‘s services , patient safety , and increase profits

Introduction

In a 31 January statement , President Bush highlighted the need for reducing health care costs and improving patient safety through wider use of information technology . He said “We will make wider use of electronic records and other health information technology to help control costs and reduce dangerous medical errors ‘ [Bush , 2006]

Medical care in United States still faces a number of problems . The cost of medical care is high and 15 of our citizens do not have access to even basic medical care [Oberlander Marmor , 2001] . Problems arising out of concern for patients ‘ safety are a major worry for both medical professionals and hospitals . Errors resulting due to incorrect medication , misplacement of records , oversight by medical professionals and general administrative errors compromise patient safety and result in litigations and high cost of insurance

A number of these errors can be minimized by maintaining proper records having on-time access to patients ‘ medical history and removal of human errors in hospital and patient management . It is to the credit of the health industry that it manages itself so well and errors are kept under control . However , everyone recognizes a need to improve patient safety as the present status cannot be considered satisfactory for both health industry and the patients

Disasters like floods and fire as recently witnessed in the aftermath of Katrina , Rita , Wilma flooding and California fire where medical records were lost also highlighted the need to create electronic medical records and eliminate the based medical record system . [Barlow 2005] points out that despite availability of information technology appropriate for use in the health… [banner_entry_footer]