2010

[EFFECT OF IT ON HEALTH
SECTOR ]
 Table of Contents
Page
Chapter 1 Introduction 1
1.1 Health Disparities 1
1.2 Information Technology impact on healthcare industry 1
1.2.1 Patient-Centric IT 2
1.2.2 IT instruments in medical sector . 2
1.3 The Insurance and Society impact in heath and Medical 2
1.3.1 Health Insurance 3
1.3.2 Private Insurance and Free-Market Health Care 3
1.3.3 Publicly Funded Health Care 3

Chapter 2 - Positive Approach of IT on the Health Sector 4

2.1 Introduction 4
2.2 Learning & Researching Advancement Through the Technology 4
2.2.1 Invention of New Medicines & Drugs 5
2.2.2 Invention of New Medical Equipments 5
2.2.3 Rise of the Expert Systems on the Health Sector 6
2.3 Social Awareness on Health towards the Technology 7
2.4 Summary 7

Chapter 3- Health issues related with information technology. 8

3.1 Introduction 8
3.2 IT enabled genetic engineering and health problems 8
3.3 Mobile phone usage and health issues 9
3.4 IT improves the manufacturing of alcohol (Evil of health) 9
3.5 Playing computer games and health hazards 10
3.6 Pornography and health issues 10
3.7 General diseases occurred in usage of computers 11
3.7.1 Repetitive strain injury 11
3.7.2 Computer vision syndrome (CVS) 11
3.8 Summary

Work Breakdown Structure 12

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Chapter 1
Introduction

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines heath as " a state of complete physical, mental and
social well-being, and does not consist only of the absence of disease or infirmity". Different cultures
have different healthy aspects. In some cultures, larger body sizes are seen as a sign of healthiness as it
indicates an individual has a preponderance of food. In other cultures, largess is more closely
associated with unhealthy lifestyles. Today the healthy practices were not emphasized prior to clear
understandings of disease and the contributions of lifestyles to health. Heath care is an industry
associated with the prevention, treatment, and management of illness along with the promotion of
mental and physical well-being through the services offered by the medical and allied health
professions. The sociology of health and medicine is concerned with the distribution of healthcare
services globally, in particular inequalities in healthcare, and how conceptions of health have changed
over time. While technology has advanced the practice of medicine and generally improved health, not
all people have the same access to health care or the same quality of health care.

1.1 Health Disparities

There are a number of ways in which health disparities play out based on different systems of
stratification. Health disparities resulting from economic stratification are wide-ranging. Poorer women
have reduced access to mammograms to detect breast cancer, even when they are better candidates for
screening. Wealthier people live longer than poorer people. The more educated people are more likely
to take advantages of advances in medical science and technology and have seen a more rapid decline
in smoking rates, which directly improves health. Disparities in health care between the rich and poor
are not inevitable - they are directly correlated with disparities in wealth. The differential and unequal
treatment of the rich and poor follows the gap between the rich and the poor. Financial access to health
care is not the only factor that affects health; poorer people are generally less likely to exercise,
resulting in overall poorer health as well. This is probably due to fewer opportunities to exercise and a
less well-developed understanding of the importance exercise. Poorer individuals also live in more
dangerous neighborhoods and are more likely to eat unhealthy food and engage in risky or unhealthy
behavior, all of which contributes to poorer health.

1.2 Information Technology impact on healthcare industry

Information Technology's role in providing high quality healthcare is rapidly growing industry. It is
very essential to provide services to these healthcare sectors. As Information Technology increasingly
penetrates the healthcare industry, physicians and patients are experiencing the benefits of on-demand
access to medical information where, when and how it is needed. Facilitating the flow of information
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within a healthcare organization is becoming a quality differentiator among healthcare providers

competing in the GCC region. The development of IT is very helpful for the patients and the
physicians. So the doctor can identify the disease easily. It is also easy to handle the patients according
to their diseases. There are so many IT instruments to find the diseases.

1.2.1 Patient-Centric IT
Recent advances in IT are enabling providers to improve the quality of patient care. Today's healthcare
IT is much more than traditional isolated computers and unfriendly applications. Increasingly, patient
care is exploiting the new tools and information that systems can provide, while maintaining a patient-
centric approach to their use. Software that supports the core medical processes, hardware that allows
easy access to information at the point of care, and standards that make the integration of different
systems easier than ever before are all key features of the new healthcare IT systems.

1.2.2 IT instruments in medical sector .

The driving force behind the revolution in healthcare IT is the desire for providers to offer the best
possible standard of care to each patient. This has driven the emergence, and growing sophistication of
the Electronic Medical Record, (EMR). This digital record can hold the full details of an individual's
medical history, which ultimately helps to direct diagnostic and therapeutic decisions when a patient
enters the healthcare system. There is another new technology is growing now. It is nuclear medical. It
is a powerful technology. This technology is used to identify the diseases. To identify the infected cells
in the cancer and other diseases. These instruments are using the - rays to get the image of infected
cells.
The growing of IT in medical is very important and essential. It is provide more efficient way to find
the patients disease. It is more reliable. So we can decrease the death of patients, without knowing the
diseases. Therefore these technologies are very helpful to make the people healthier.

1.3 The Insurance and Society impact in heath and Medical

In the society there are government sector and private sectors to help the poor people and rich people
for their medical expenses. For the poor people the government sector is very useful. There are
president funds for the poor people. Especially for major surgery such as Heart operation, Kidney
operation etc. For these expenses the presidents fund separate a part of money for these poor people.
There are government hospitals for the poor people for their minor surgery such as childbirth, diseases
etc. The people who wok in government estate they also get money form the estate for the impact of
death. Disparities in health care are often related to an individual's or a group's ability to pay for
healthcare. This means the costs of healthcare and the different approaches to health care that have
been taken by governments around the world. There are so many life insurance companies for the rich
and poor people. 2
1.3.1 Health Insurance
Health insurance is a type of insurance whereby the insurer pays the medical costs of the insured if the
insured becomes sick due to covered causes or accidents. The insurer may be a private organization or
a government agency. The people could lower health insurance prices by exercising, eating healthy
food, and avoiding addictive substances that are damaging to the body. Healthier lifestyles protect the
body from disease, and with fewer diseases, there would be fewer health care related expenses.
Another element of high health care costs is related to the private management of healthcare by large
corporations.

1.3.2 Private Insurance and Free-Market Health Care

Two types of health insurance have developed in modern society, private health insurance (or free-
market) models and publicly funded health insurance models. Private insurance refers to health
insurance provided by a non-governmental organization, usually a privately owned or publically traded
corporation. The remarkable advances in medical technology that have accompanied the private
insurance/free-market approach to health care.

1.3.3 Publicly Funded Health Care

An alternative to private health insurance and the free-market approach to health care is publicly
funded health care. Publicly funded medicine is health care that is paid wholly or mostly by public
funds (e.g. taxes). Publicly funded medicine is often referred to as socialized medicine by its
opponents, whereas supporters of this approach tend to use the terms universal healthcare, single payer
healthcare, or National Health Services. So these insurance sectors and health care centers are help
both the poor and rich people for their medical expenses. There are so many ways available for the
people to get life insurance policy. So they can pay a small amount for a month. Then in the case of
accident and other diseases these government and private sector help to spent money for their medical
expense.
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Chapter 2
Positive Approach of IT on the Health Sector
2.1 Introduction

The technological improvement & development affected to the well being of the health sector in a
significant way. The new inventions on medically related sections made a huge development on the
unrevealed areas in the medical world with a new approach. The development of new related devices,
equipments made health sector rich & the systems are developed to make things easier, also the
education & awareness on health areas are vastly increased with the aid of the technology. The
knowledge on health becomes more common & available almost all the places in the world with the
development of communication method via the technological development. The significant areas
which made medical sector enrich with knowledge, power, equipments are discussed below.

2.2 Learning & Researching Advancement Through the Technology

Education is one of the crucial events for a developing country. The standard of the country is
depending on the educational advancements & achievements at most of the cases. Therefore learning
& researching activities involved a major consideration on development of a country. On behalf of
health, education regarding health factors is very important. The knowledge of a society on the medical
science decides the well-being of that society. More educated personnel on the field means more
consideration on behalf of health of the people. Therefore people started to seek for advancement in
health through education.
To achieve that advancement people found that information technology plays a major role. When the
technology develops the facilities provided to the educational field will be increased, thus many people
can involve in learning health related stuff. Earlier there were few places in a country to study,
Research on the medical factors as the resources were limited. People who were willing to learn also
not get the chance to do so as a result of this less development in technology. But with the development
of information technology, resources regarding health education are commonly available & most of
them are free of charge, thus people started learning things very quickly & willingly. This resulted to a
vast development in the society on behalf of health.
Not only that technology made people to start learning things, but also for people who were already
learning things like for students, researches made the world easier. Earlier there were less development
in medical side thus devices & methods of learning about the medical factors were difficult. To know
something the students had to do many hard works. For example, earlier there were no laboratories
equipped with many complex medical devices as today, so the experiments were done with limited
resources. Thus the outcome was not efficient. Earlier the possibility of learning on health factors
deeply was very less. But with the advancement in the technology, students have more opportunities to
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discover the world with their own using the modern complex devices. Students can have an exact idea
on every area of learning with the use of these technologies. So the development of the health depends
on the development of technological development.

2.2.1 Invention of New Medicines & Drugs

Health includes physical health & mental health. To achieve both of these people need some kind of a
trigger from outside. That means sometimes people could not maintain their body in a balanced way so
that they may feel uncomfortable themselves. On those occasions, people tend have some kind of
assistance, help from something or someone. Drugs or medicine are those triggers that make people
feel comfortable on their day today life. Drugs play a major role in hospitals & almost all the places as
patients are very much rely on these drugs. Today drugs are helpful for not only human but for animals
also. There are special places for animals to be take care of by giving them necessary drugs. So for
living people need drugs & they seek drugs for each & every medical issue. Therefore invention of
new drugs is welcomed by the world population. For that the information technology has lot to do.
Earlier there were limited drugs for many deceases. That means some deceases were even not
identified & there were no cure to those deceases at all. Sometimes even there exists drugs for a
particular decease; it would take months to cure as the efficiency of those drugs is not that good. There
were no drugs for immediate treatments as lack of medical resources. This caused to sudden deaths.
There were no proper devices for surgeries like critical events & most of the time if a person is critical,
the hope for living was very little. The levels of availability of medicines were at that poor at early
stages.
Therefore with the development of technology people started developing new drugs for various
deceases. The availability of technology in a higher stage helped people to research on vast area & to
develop new medicines using the modern technology. People are able to mix tiny parts together using
complex & most accurate devices to make reliable & good quality drugs. Thus to increase the quality
of life, drugs are much important & invention of new drugs backed by the technology by giving
maximum output to the society.

2.2.2 Invention of New Medical Equipments

With the aid of modern technology, people think on areas which should be developed to have a
luxurious life. People identify those critical areas & think in terms of making it more developed.
Health is such area that many people think on that should be developed more & more. Therefore the
researches do many experiments & invent new devices & equipments using the modern technology.
The prevailing technology is highly & efficiently used to develop the medically valuable devices.
Many times ago, the technology is not at that good position thus the health of a society was kept at a
very law level. The information technology made people to produce things which make their lives
more reliable. 5

These devices replaced the old, unreliable systems & mechanisms by giving a maximum benefit to the
society. For an example earlier there were no machines to check the heart deceases & thus many
people died without identifying the subject. But now there are many types of equipment to check each
& every part of the body for its punctuality, with a reliable & trustworthy result. As the information
technology develops, the accuracy of the devices also increased benefiting the society. Therefore the
technological development makes the inventions arise & also give the light to new medical equipments
to make a healthy world.

2.2.3 Rise of the Expert Systems on the Health Sector

Modern world is very complicated & complex in every area with the development of the technology.
The complexity is not bad as it gives people many chances to do, achieve certain things. In this busy
world sometimes people could not go for certain places to do certain things because of the work load
they have to carry out. Sometimes even to take their own medicine they do not have time. Most
commonly, when we are to meet a specialist or a doctor, we have to wait for a certain period
sometimes in a queue for our turn. Sometimes that may be 1minute or 1hour or more. It depends on the
number of patients & the accuracy of the doctor. Sometimes the doctor may not present that day &
people have to come another day wasting their money & valuable time. Therefore people needed a way
to save their time & money together with getting medicines on time. Thus the expert systems are
developed as a solution for that.
Expert systems are developed using the modern information technology. With the aid of information
technology, developers gather certain important information regarding certain deceases & store in a
database. Then they design an expert system that can give possible solutions for the given deceases.
These expert systems are designed to ask some questions regarding the cause from the patient &
analyze the database & give the solutions just like a doctor. These expert systems help people to
diagnose certain deceases by themselves & to understand the amount of danger in that decease.
As these expert systems can be implemented on the internet anyone having computer literacy can use
the application. That is the biggest advantage in the expert systems from the todays perspective.
People do not want to stay hours in the queues for their turn instead they can go to internet & have the
assistance of an expert system. These expert systems help to increase the availability of the medical
care all most all over the world & thus increase the standard of health of the people in a society. Thus
the information technology has a great deal on developing those expert systems on behalf of the
goodwill of the people.
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2.3 Social Awareness on Health Towards the Technology

Health is one of the crucial events on human development & therefore people need to know certain
basic things regarding health. At the early stages people were not that much aware on most of the
deceases & they knew very few common deceases only. That made themselves into trouble when they
are fallen from unknown decease, what should be done at the first hand. The basic skills & knowledge
ware not there with those people as the communication between doctors & patients were lack & also
the methods of communication were less. With the poor technology, people were unable to aware on
certain things like how to prevent from decease, what are the first aids on certain cause etc. as these
problems arisen people started to use technology to aware the society more on the health care.
With the information technology, many communication methods are available for people to get to
know on things. The television, radio, newspapers like traditional media also contributed to the social
awareness regarding the health. But the technology advancement made things much easier by having
the internet, emailing, fax etc. these media made information commonly available for any person in the
world at any time. When people aware on certain deceases & the actions to be taken, the level of health
of the society increases. The awareness made people to do certain pre-actions to avoid from certain
deceases & do the exact thing on a critical situation. All these are because of the availability of the
knowledge for the general public & it was done by the information technology.

2.4 Summary

The information technology helps to increase the development of the social health by providing
various facilities, knowledge regarding the subject. New inventions on medical equipments, drugs &
expert systems to help people & also aware society on the health, are major advancements achieved by
the medical field with the aid of information technology. Thus the information technology has a
positive approach on development of the health on a society.
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Chapter 3
Health issues related with information technology.
3.1 Introduction
This chapter is to describe that what negative impacts of health by using information technology to
individuals and society are. How information technology deals with these health hazards and how to
prevent those damages are mainly discusses here.

3.2 IT enabled genetic engineering and health problems

Genetic engineering is very important subject area which is used to produce foods and living beings by
modifying genes. Genetic engineering uses transformation and molecular cloning to change genes
directly. This technology applies for medicine, agriculture like areas successfully. The main and initial
purpose of genetic engineering was that increases the productivity of crops and produces drugs to
attack various diseases. Jack Williamson added the word Genetic Engineering in 1951 by his
Dragons Island novel. Then after finding the double-helix structure of the DNA (Deoxyribonucleic
acid), this subject area has been growing rapidly.
At present, Information technology plays major role in genetic engineering. There are many
bioinformatics software which are used to do analysis in genes. For an example, plasmids (vector) are
using genetic engineering to make many copies or express particular genes. To record the DNA
sequence of plasmids and predict cut sites of restriction enzymes, scientists use Geneious, Lasergene,
ApE like expert system based softwares. The story of IT and genetic engineering was begun by
Deubert and Sontums Fortron program called Protein Mastermind in 1977. Geneious is one of the
sophisticated cross platform software which is commonly uses in genetic engineering by today. It uses
to analysis the DNA sequence or phylogenies and design clones.
But the problem is that this IT enabled genetic technology arises several health issues. By consuming
GM foods heavily may causes to food allergens and make a resistance to antibiotic. It reduces the
effectiveness of humans natural antibiotics, because of GM foods have antibiotic resistance genes. As
well as GM foods make toxic substances and toxic fungi which are harmful to human beings. In 1990
scientists found out that people who have allergic to Brazil nuts have allergic GM soybeans. So many
countries banned the GM soybeans after this experiment. But the problem is that America like
developed countries do lot of investments on GM food cultivation and promotion, so they are not ready
to produce GM foods because of the commercial success of it. Another health issue in GM foods is that
they have a lesser nutritional level than natural foods. So this may cause to malnutrition like health
disease in future. If the scientists are going to create human clones in future, it may cause too many
negative impacts in psychologically also.
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3.3 Mobile phone usage and health issues
Mobile phone is one of the main communication devices which is commonly used in modern world. It
helps to establish social interactions between each other without concerning the location. By 2009,
there are nearly 4.4 billion mobile phone users in the world. This fact shows that how this small
communication device becomes a powerful tool to humans day today activities. But the over-usage of
mobile phones and usage of poor quality phones makes so many mentally and physically health issues.
According to the latest experiment, scientists found out that there might be a connection between
increasing the patients with brain tumors and mobile phone usage. They emphasis that usage poor
quality phones which are heavily emit radiation waves causes to this brain tumors and at length
becomes a brain cancer. As well as using hand sets with a huge volume causes to damage the hearing
level. If that habit continues for a long time period, the hearing will be lost. So the governments of
many countries introduce laws to reduce the volume levels of hand sets. To reduce those health issues,
Apollo medical team said that always use the left ear for phones not right ear which has a direct link
with brain. Not only physical issues, but also mobile phones arise so many mentally health issues as
well. Excessive usage of mobile phones causes to stress, fatigue, restlessness and sleeping problems
for the people specially youth 14 to 20 years age. Because of this restlessness, careless life style people
may addict to drinking alcohol, smoking like bad habits too.

3.4 IT improves the manufacturing of alcohol (Evil of health).

There is no argument that consuming alcohol (Beer,Arrack,Vine etc.) causes to many health problems.
So, the interesting point is that how IT interacts with manufacturing and promoting alcohols. At
present, leading alcohol manufacturers use IT to increase the efficiency of their production. To perform
the calculations in distillery in reliable manner, they use ABS (alcohol blending software) like
softwares. As well as these companies use software to perform their financial and advertising activities
also. There are so many softwares to learn how to brewing beer in home. They are BeerSmith,
cyberbrau etc. Using these softwares, the user can input receipts and do brewing step by step.
Orchestrated Beer is one of main business software which is used by small and medium scale
brewing companies.
Drinking alcohol arises many health issues in physically and mentally. Alcohol damages the liver of
human beings. Excessive usage of alcohol definitely causes to Cirrhosis like liver damages. As well as
usage of alcohol has affects to certain cancers (liver, breast) also. Heart diseases, hemorrhagic stroke,
digestive disturbance, high blood pressure, neurological disorders and sleep disruptions are several
health issues which are caused by the usage of alcohol. So growing alcohol manufacturing with
information technology is done a huge damage to humans health. So these brewing softwares and
expert systems have a responsibility to increase above mentioned health issues in the society.
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3.5 Playing computer games and health hazards
Playing computer games is the most popular cyber activity among kids and teenagers. Creators of these
computer games also focus the group aged below 25 and introduce many games with more
attractiveness. Most of the kids and teenagers addict to these games and spend more time to play these
games. Because of this addiction, several health issues are arisen.
Pressing specific keys and clicking the mouse repeatedly causes to overuse damages on hands. This
happens especially while playing car and action games like things. In this kind of games, user has to
control the player by using few keys (shooting, regulate directions) only. In computer games, the user
may have to gaze at a specific point for a long time period. This may cause to eyestrain also. There are
several actions which can be taken by parents to reduce those problems. Allow to play games in a
certain time period, advice to take regular relax while playing; change the controllers (key board,
mouse or joystick) regularly.
The mentally damage of computer games addiction is more destructive than physically damage.
According to researches, there is possibility to become criminals who addict to crime related games in
childhood. The fear to kill a person and use weapons is removing from the kids minds in childhood.
These kinds think like that killing a person is an ordinary scene. So this is become a great social and
cultural issue in future.
In recently, there was news that a kid was dead without taking foods while playing computer games.
This kid plays a certain game for days without moving or performing other activities. So this is the best
example which proves that computer games addiction causes to severe health diseases. Stress,
restlessness and certain phobias may be occurred by this game addiction too.

3.6 Pornography and health issues

Usage of IT and IT related Internet is one of main responsible party for spreading pornographically
materials all over the world without limit of age. So using IT, it is very easy to access pornographically
materials and use these materials are caused to many health and social problems. This helps to addict
teenagers to pornographycal stuffs, because of that there is trend to do sexual activities by them. So
these unaware sexual activities lead to many health problems. AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency
Syndrome), Gonorrhea, Candidacies, Syphilis, viral hepatitis and ovarian cancers etc. In addition to
these physical hazards, there are so many mental problem occurred by over-use of pornographycal
stuffs. Mental disorders like stress, disrupted sleeping, breaking social relations are the psychological
damages of this pornography addiction.
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3.7 General diseases occurred in usage of computers
3.7.1 Repetitive strain injury
Repetitive strain injury (RSI) is commonly known disease among common users. This happens mainly
by doing the same action repeatedly. Having poor posture, having poor techniques, use computers
more than four hours, dont take regular breaks, disrupted sleeping are several other factors which are
caused to RSI. The symptoms of this disease are that pain in fingers, palms, wrists, forearms, back and
shoulders, lack of endurance, pain worse with the activity. To prevent this health risks, there are several
actions which can be taken by computer users. They are, use ergonomically optimized computer
equipments (chair, table, keyboard, mouse, and monitor), do strengthening, stretching and aerobic
exercises and use voice activated softwares (NetSpeak) etc.

Figure 3.7.1.1 Proper ergonomic design for computer users.

3.7.2 Computer vision syndrome (CVS)
Computer vision syndrome (decreasing the blinking reflex) is one of the heavily affected hazards
among the computer users. This happens by looking at the computer screen for a long time period
without interrupt. Headache, blurred vision, eye strain and fatigue are main symptoms of this
syndrome. Using glare guards, having good lighting conditions and taking a eye rest in 20-20-20 rule
(look at a point 20 feet away and focus on it for 20 seconds in every 20 minute).
3.8 Summary
Identifying these health problems related with IT, and minimize the affects of them as much as possible
is needed to improve the quality of life in physically and psychologically.
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