INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND HEALTHCARE

Information Technology and Healthcare

Information Technology and Healthcare

Introduction

Medical technologies are booming and are adopted at alarming rates; however, the case is not true for information technology within healthcare. The healthcare industry lags behind most mainstream industries with regard to information technologies (Burt & Sisk, 2005). Banking and hospitality industries, both of which share similarities with the healthcare industry, realized the need for information technology several years ago, committed to the technology through budgeting and planning, and have successfully implemented these technologies within various businesses.

Within healthcare, the need for information technology is well known. However, the commitment to information technology is still very limited. U.S. hospital spending on information technology should hit $4.7 billion by the end of 2009, when HIMSS Analytics, Chicago published it report in early August, 2009, the latest of such figure available. It will grow to $6.8 billion by 2014, at a compounded annual growth rate of 7.5%, the report says. This amount still represents a small percentage of healthcare industry's revenue. However, three-quarters of companies have chosen to devote more revenues to information technology for the coming years.

There are many areas for information technology improvements in healthcare. One of the greatest areas for improvement in information technology is in the implementation of an electronic health system based on the use of electronic medical records (EMR), also known as automated medical records and many other name such as clinical data repository, computer-based patient record, computer-based patient record system, computer-based patient record-type system, computerized medical record, computerized patient record, electronic health record, electronic patient record, lifetime data repository, virtual health record, or virtual patient record. Since federal government already mandated all healthcare providers to implement EMR system, the question confront individual healthcare provider is longer if but how and which implementation strategy to adopt.

Need of Technology in Health Care

Currently, most of the health industry's data is generated in a paper environment, leading to disorganization, limited communication, and restricted support for healthcare professionals around the nation. Information technology will be able to transform the way the health industry manages its data so that healthcare professionals can more efficiently communicate with each other. With digital healthcare records, miscommunication concerning patient diagnosis or medication will be greatly reduced. Not only will health informatics save health professionals time and money during the next decade, but the well-being and general outlooks of patients will improve. The primary goal of all healthcare professionals is to save and improve peoples' lives. Through health informatics, healthcare professionals will now be able to focus more productively on the care of their patients with less emphasis on maintaining their patients' medical records. In addition to transforming the health industry's paper environment, health informatics will also provide employment to an increasing range of healthcare professionals.

Individual Level of Health Communication

Four major communication processes occur at the individual level in health contexts: professional- patient, professional-professional, professional-family and patient-family relationships. For example, communication between health care professionals and patients affects or is affected ...