How Information Technology is helping the Healthcare Industry

By: Adonis Sardias, MBA Director of I.T & Project Manager with Deisell Consultants, LLC

Day in, day out technology is changing the way we work and play; those that embrace it will be ahead of the crowd while others will be left in the dust. Using I.T. Information Technology to streamline businesses and the processes that support it is not something new. As technology advances so will the need for more number crunching, data storage, and paper scanning and shredding. Hand in hand with these I.T. advances comes the advancement of medicine and improvements in Healthcare. Surprising enough, the U.S Healthcare industry is one of the worlds most leading technologically advanced when it comes to medical equipment (Select USA).
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Nevertheless, even with all these technological advances in medical equipment; the infrastructure struggles to keep up. Ironically enough, these I.T. solutions could improve efficiency and quality of patient care. These solutions could assist with improving the health of the aging population of baby boomers. This would help doctors better treat epidemics and chronic conditions such as diabetes, reduce cost to those with limited access to healthcare from lack of insurance, and the high expenditures from administrative overhead which constitutes for 25% of all healthcare costs consisting of preparing, submitting, calculating, paying and collecting medical bills (Philadelphia Daily News, 2004). Like many other industries, the high upfront investment costs tend to intimidate the financial directors and executives. In the end, the benefits outweigh the cost in both soft and hard costs, anticipating if deployed correctly these investments over the years will show results.

Learn more: Watch (How to Measure the ROI of Healthcare Technology youtube.com/watch?v=UkKFvzgnjvU ) Healthcare C-levels executives need to keep in mind these benefits not only affect patients, but providers and doctors as well, by reducing errors and increasing process efficiencies.

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Here are some ways I.T. investments are improving the Healthcare Industry:
Patients Online tracking and digital records access from services such as Microsoft HealthVault www.healthvault.com; Electronic Prescription Managements by local pharmacies, such as CVS www.cvs.com; Walgreens www.walgreens.com and E-Scripts www.express-scripts.com; and who can forget WebMD www.webmd.com which has provided a wealth of information for the rest of us nondoctors. Quest Diagnostics also allows patients to make online appointments and retrieve digital copies of test results via their website www.questdiagnostics.com. In addition, Quest Diagnostics is bridging the gap between Patients and Doctors together with Care360 find out more at www.care360.com . Doctors As mentioned before, service such as Care360 and others help doctors reduce errors so there is less need for follow-ups. EMR Electronic Medical Record is another breakthrough which reduces the need for file cabinets and allows easy transfer of a patients medical records between providers, hospitals, doctors and patients. Providers Last but certainly not least, providers connect all the dots together by building and supporting the infrastructure in which patients and doctors connect. Between the reductions of administrative overhead that contributes to large portion of healthcare costs, along with the implementation of electronic records that can be access throughout the facilities and outreach centers easily and efficiently while reducing errors. Helping patients, doctors and providers can sleep easier at night. Providers are not alone, many companies such as Microsoft, Dell, HP, EMC, Cisco, Siemen, McKesson, and many others are providing solutions and incentives for the healthcare industry to move into the digital era. So where does your healthcare solutions stand today? Patients: Are you digitizing and managing your heath online with patient access services? Doctors: Is your practice benefiting from EMR and other digital services? Providers: Is your infrastructure ready for tomorrows technology?

Leave your comments today.

Website: http://www.deisell.com About.me : http://bit.ly/consultadonis

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Sources
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