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Information Technology Strategies for Medicine

Information technology has played a vital role in allowing physicians and other healthcare professionals to operate more efficiently and communicate with one another. Medicine continues to advance, with global understanding of the human body increasing every day. Keeping track of this growing body of information would be difficult without information technology strategies.

  1. Privacy

    • Healthcare organizations must protect patient privacy. Patient privacy can be protected in many of the same ways that privacy is protected in other information technology systems. Firewalls make it more difficult for hackers to obtain unauthorized access to information systems. Network administrators can regularly monitor the access of patient files in order to detect whether or not someone accesses them inappropriately.

    Information Access

    • Physicians and other healthcare professionals use information technology to more efficiently give medical information to patients, according to Singapore Med. Patients are able to log on to their own records without having to consult a physician face-to-face, reducing the physician's workload.

    Diagnostic Imaging

    • Information technology is used to analyze diagnostic images of the patient's body in order to interpret details that are not possible for the physician to interpret. Information technology can be used to make diagnostic images clearer for physicians, according to ERCIM News. Information technology also makes it easier for healthcare professionals to send diagnostic images back and forth between each other and patients through emails. This fluidity of information sharing helps physicians become increasingly specialized as areas of medicine continue to expand.

    Human Genome Project

    • The Human Genome Project has successfully mapped out all of the human genes using information technology. The Human Genome Project helps healthcare professionals create more personalized healthcare plans for patients, according to Science Roll, a blog focused on the intersection of genetics and medicine. Genetic information can become increasingly indispensible in the fight against cancer, as physicians can compare the effects that treatments have on the DNA of the cancerous cells to statistical information found in vast databases of genetic information.

    Coordination

    • Information technology is used to keep healthcare professionals and healthcare administrators coordinated on patient medical information, according to the Medical Journal of Australia. The number of patients that healthcare professionals see in a given day can be very large. Patient health information goes into a database, which healthcare professionals can easily access to make decisions more quickly. Many information systems allow healthcare professionals to monitor the life signs of a large number of patients in the hospital setting so that they can receive prompt treatment, according to the Detroit Free Press.

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