The Role of Information Technology in Human Health

Information Technology (IT) in human health care involves the widespread use of digitized products, online databases, and network infrastructures as the means of communication between hospitals, physicians, providers, insurers, patients and suppliers. Always evolving and advancing, health IT will play a critical role in decisions regarding the future of personal health management and health care reform

Types

• IT includes many types of administrative and clinical roles within health care today. IT provides administrative applications for electronic billing, Integrated Delivery Systems (IDS), medical claim submission and patient scheduling. Clinically, IT provides physicians with computerized provider order entry (CPOE), accessibility to online treatment and drug databases and networks for e-scribing medications. IT advancements in the electronic storage of health care data include Recognition and Imaging Software, the Personalized Health Record (PHR), the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) and the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA).

Significance

• IT in human health care provides an interactive network where medical facilities, physicians, and providers can communicate, collaborate, develop partnerships, exchange ideas and ultimately increase the quality of health care worldwide. In addition, health IT advancements now offer patients online access to e-health tools, personalized health record software and other methods for self-managing healthcare.

Benefits

• Electronic billing, electronic claim submission, and digital imaging equipment are IT applications that provide hospitals and physicians with a quick and consistent return on the investment. The long-term nonfinancial benefits to using IT administratively and in clinical practice include improved patient safety and quality of care, physician accessible medical information at patient point of care, improved administrative accuracy and clinical efficiency, increased interaction between patient and provider, increased morale among employees and enhanced hospital public relations.

Barriers

• Since the financial benefits of implementing IT into health care happen over time, investment returns are difficult to calculate. Consequently, initial start-up costs to hospitals prove to be the biggest barriers. These costs include purchasing products and technology, developing IT infrastructures, training the staff, providing system and maintenance support, and integrating new applications with existing systems. Because widespread use of IT is critical to its overall success in health care, the fact that thousands of smaller, lower-budgeted hospitals may be unable to participate accordingly presents an obstacle. Another barrier is the reluctance of physicians and providers to accept complex changes to the system without immediate guarantees.

Considerations

• Security issues remain the biggest risk factors and consideration points regarding widespread use of IT in human health care. The main issues include unauthorized access to patient medical history and security breaches relevant to personal patient and provider information.