An exciting range of new technologies is transforming healthcare IT in ways that are expected to cut costs and improve medical care. Not all healthcare organizations are up to the task of deploying these technologies, however.
In particular, Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are being widely used to help track patient health, and mobile health (mHealth) is allowing physicians and patients to use mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets to record and check healthcare processes on-the-go. Healthcare organizations also are finding that telemedicine is eliminating distance barriers through the use of network and information technologies, and that it can cut down on costs.
“By enabling anywhere, anytime access on any device, specialist resources can be used more efficiently to address patient conditions which can help eliminate unnecessary transfers, admissions or readmissions and can reduce lengths of stay, noted a recent Alcatel-Lucent (News
- Alert) blog post, Does healthcare IT need a check-up?, by Brendan Ziolo (News - Alert), Head of Large Enterprise Marketing, Alcatel-Lucent. He added, “In addition, timely access to the right physician can predict or prevent an adverse event.”
Roughly 64 percent of healthcare executives say new mobile technologies and services could dramatically improve outcomes by giving people greater access to medical information, according to a recent study by the Economist.
Yet, many healthcare organizations currently do not have the right healthcare IT in place to support these technologies.
“Most providers have information silos with different records or information fragmented across multiple systems,” Ziola noted in another recent blog on the subject of healthcare transformation. “To fully take advantage of new technologies and practices, providers must revisit their IT infrastructure.”
Central to effectively deploying these technologies is the cloud. Healthcare providers must capture, store, and accurately analyze all information to generate insights that offers the best patient care, according to Ziola. He further explains that this can only be done by leveraging data analytics and a technology infrastructure that seamlessly integrates information generated from multiple inputs. Using cloud-based technologies, an agile technology platform can be built to meet regulatory requirements with the ability to grow exponentially in step with a health organization’s digital progression.
Unfortunately, while 63 percent of healthcare decision makers cite IT as an important component of modern healthcare, according to a recent Penn Schoen Berland study, only 18 percent consider themselves among the first to adopt new technology.
This needs to change if healthcare IT is going to make the impact on the medical profession that many predict. In short, in answer to the rhetorical question, “Does healthcare IT need a check-up?,” the answer is an unqualified YES!
Edited by Peter Bernstein