HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Health Information Technology

Health Information Technology

Introduction

Health Information Technology Act of 2009 has introduced new changes in our existing health care system. E-health is the use of emerging interactive telecommunications technologies such as the Internet (Akay, Metin, and Marsh, 2001), interactive TV, kiosks, personal digital assistants, CD-ROMs, and DVD-ROMs to facilitate health improvement and health care services. Use of these specialized technologies is considered to be a type of “online” intervention strategy. An online strategy involves the use of electronic technology usually in the form of a computer. Often a health care intervention uses a mixture of online and the more traditional offline approach as the methods for delivery of information directed to the patient and increasingly to the health care consumer.

The Internet is a public, international network of linked, decentralized computers linked by fiber optics and other networks that allow users to communicate with each other no matter what the location or time. The Internet provides access 24 hours a day, seven days a week—24/7. The Internet is used to transmit electronic mail, find information, and engage in person-to-person exchange of text, graphic, audio, video, and other data. Interactive TV also known as polycom provides both audio and visual transfer of a variety of information between two or more individuals at two or more locations in real time. Kiosk is a free-standing device, usually a computer that provides interactive information to the user. Most information is provided through a series of interactive prompts on a touch tone screen. Kiosks can also be used to collect data and information from users. Personal digital assistants (PDAs) also known as handhelds or palm pilots are personal organizers that store thousands of bits of data including phone numbers, addresses, notes, and customized software. PDAs exchange, or synchronize, information with a full-sized computer. CD-ROM also known as a compact disk is a device that stores a variety of non-digital data. Some CD-ROMs can be used repeatedly (read/write) while others can only be used once to store and retrieve data. DVD-ROM also known as a digital video disk is similar to a CD-ROM but stores data digitally.

Telemedicine, also known as telepresence medicine, is a field where telecommunications and medicine interact. Telemedicine can be viewed as a subset of E-health because it makes use of the wide variety of interactive technologies that comprise E-health and has the goal of health improvement, usually through clinical intervention.

Disabled individuals often lack some sensory ability (sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell) that prevents them from fully participating in society. E-health relies on environments that use a variety of technologies that can compensate for the lack of sensory ability. For example, technology can be applied to the movements of the hands, fingers, shoulders, or face so that communication can be established between the individual, the computer system, and the person's environment. These adaptations have the potential to permit access for the disabled to the information society due to the less constraining environment of cyberspace compared to that imposed by the physical ...