Technology is considered to be the driving force behind improvements in healthcare and, when you look at the rate of change and recent innovations, many find it hard not to agree with that observation.
Graduates of health informatics will no doubt agree that technology is impacting many aspects of our lives as breakthroughs in data collection, research and treatments allow medical providers to use new tools and find fresh and innovative ways to practice medicine into the future.A number of industry analysts have observed that increased accessibility of treatment is one of the most tangible ways that technology has changed healthcare. Health IT opens up many more avenues of exploration and research, which allows experts to make healthcare more driven and effective than it has ever been.
Another key area that has grown and continues to do so is patient care. The use of information technology has made patient care safer and more reliable in most applications.
The fact that nurses and doctors who are working on the frontline are now routinely using hand-held computers to record important real-time patient data and then sharing it instantly within their updated medical history is an excellent illustration of the benefits of health IT.
Being able to accumulate lab results, records of vital signs and other critical patient data into one centralized area has transformed the level of care and efficiency a patient can expect to receive when they enter the healthcare system.
An increased level of efficiency in data collection means that a vast online resource of patient history is available to scientists, who are finding new ways to study trends and make medical breakthroughs at a faster rate. The development of specific software programs means that, for example, the World Health Organization has been able to classify illnesses, their causes and symptoms into a massive database that encompasses more than 14,000 individual codes.
This resource allows medical professionals and researchers to track, retrieve and utilize valuable data in the fight to control disease and provide better healthcare outcomes in general.
Software also plays a pivotal role in tracking procedures and using billing methods that not only reduce paperwork levels, but also allow practitioners to use this data to improve quality of care and all around efficiency.
Doctors report that they are deriving enormous benefits from the drive toward a total system of electronic medical records; patients enjoy the fact that software has created a greater degree of transparency in the healthcare system.
We have seen many positive changes in health IT and expect to continue witnessing more exciting developments in the future!
