The growth of technology has led to massive growth in all industries. Healthcare industry has not been an exception where the massive growth of technology had led to the introduction of new clinical systems. The new clinical systems enhance the communication between the shareholders in treatment and diagnosis, sharing of information, research, and overall data storage. However, there are associated challenges such as data safety, accuracy, as well as the overall efficiency of the new clinical systems based on the attributes of the patients and other shareholders. These attributes include cultural aspects, literacy levels, access to information, as well as the degree of collaboration.
Dykes et al. (2017) conducted a study to determine how the application of new technologies affects the quality of intensive care units. The study included two thousand patients held in the Intensive Care Unit. The variables of the study included general satisfaction, sharing of information, quality of treatment, and communication between the physician and the patient. Other facets of the study were to determine the confounding people-specific that could affect the quality of care for patients in the intensive care unit.
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The study found out that, through the integration of technology to clinical systems, patients were more aware of their treatment process. There was also a huge reduction in adverse events across the Intensive Unit Wards, following the ease of communication with the physicians. However, Dykes et al. (2017) noted that even when technological adoption is necessary to the future of healthcare they are hugely dependent on the human capital undertaking the processes. A higher computer literacy level led to higher efficiency. Therefore, in the future, health institutions move towards the new technology, they must ensure that they have the necessary human capital to design, implement, and operate the systems for increased efficiency.
Following the growth in technology, institutions started funding projects to educate the public about the technology application and its impacts on overall health efficiency. Health IT is one such institution funded by the federal government to coordinate the use of medical information. The institution uses its integrative website to share all the trending topics in healthcare including the use of electronic health records (EHRs) instead of the commonly used paper reports (Mandel, Kreda, Mandl, Kohane & Ramoni, 2016). Over the years, the institution has conducted studies on the operations of technology to make future estimations.
There is a future projection that, in the future, any institution in the health industry that seeks to remain competitive must adapt to EHRs. Through a comparison of institutions using EHRs, Health IT indicates that the new clinical systems are high risk and requires regular update and security confirmation. The technicality involved in the design, set-up, and operation of these systems requires experts. Health IT offers a list of skills and expertise required for a physician to effective operate EHRs record as well as the possible risks and errors. The study confirms that expert human capital is necessary to ensure positive outcomes and effectiveness.
HIMMS also offers insights on the application technology in the medical industry. The resource focuses on training people on the application of EHRs and the associated risks. An integrative HER system increases the efficiency of the entire organization. Firstly, it ensures that the players in various departments receive and send information with more convenience. The reliance of information from various sources through data analysis systems reduces the time taken in decision-making (Wise & FHIMSS, 2016). Moreover, ERHs ensures safer and faster retrieval of patient’s data during emergency treatments. The traditional system required a manual search for a patient’s data and verification a process that could take time thus risking a patient’s life. Integration of technology solves such challenges by ensuring timely access and real-time update of data. This increases overall efficiency.
On the downside, HIMMs identifies the vulnerability of private data as the leading challenge. Organizations that seek to adopt the new technology must ensure that their models comply with HIPAA privacy policies. They must also ensure that the system is safe from internal and external threats. These threats include inaccurate representation of data, hacking, failure of the system during critical moments, accuracy in data application, and overall integration between the system and the human capital operating it.
Sittig and Singh (2015) conducted a preliminary study on the adoption of the EHRs and their impacts on the overall cost of treatment. If a health organization seeks to maintain efficiency, it must consider the affordability of its services. In this case, they identified that out that only 11.5% of USA health institutions had comprehensive HER systems. However, the adoption rate was at 45% indicating that only 10% of the adopting organizations had attained the desired level of integration. This led to lower efficiency and higher risk.
The study proposed a comprehensive training and in-house maintenance team to ensure that the systems were operational. Moreover, the tremendous growth in technology indicated that the system would be requiring a regular update. Failure for a regular update would increase the system’s vulnerability to attacks. The primary purpose of the in-house IT team is to constantly check the system for upgrade opportunities and growing threats as indicated in the overall growth of the technology industry. Moreover, the technology literacy index for a certain community also dictated heavily on the efficiency level with communities with younger, technology-oriented, populations having better efficiency than other consumer groups. Therefore, in an attempt to increase the efficiency of clinical systems using technology, it is vital to map out public participation and come up with education programs.
The growth in technology had led to massive competition. New entrants in the market and less established health institutions are constantly challenging the position of established organizations using technology as a competitive advantage. Gao, Li, and Luo (2015) examine the internal and external factors that affect the adaptive advantage maintained by an organization through the use of technology. This advantage is based on a number of factors including the demographics of the shareholders, the capital available for adoption and development, the training level of the employees among others. The feasibility study of institutions adopting technology in their clinical systems must include these institution-subjective aspects that affect the overall efficiency.
The study also highlighted the various challenges associated with the use of technology in healthcare and especially the legality of the systems. Although the private and public sectors are slowly adopting technology-based clinical systems, there are regulations on the use of these systems especially when it comes to data privacy. Before designing the clinical system, it is vital to consider these legal aspects and make sure they did not reduce the success of the system or the overall efficiency of the organization.
References
Dykes, P. C., Rozenblum, R., Dalal, A., Massaro, A., Chang, F., Clements, M., ... & Hanna, J. (2017). Prospective evaluation of a multifaceted intervention to improve outcomes in intensive care: The promoting respect and ongoing safety through patient engagement communication and technology study. Critical Care Medicine , 45 (8), e806-e813.
Gao, Y., Li, H., & Luo, Y. (2015). An empirical study of wearable technology acceptance in healthcare. Industrial Management & Data Systems , 115 (9), 1704-1723.
Mandel, J. C., Kreda, D. A., Mandl, K. D., Kohane, I. S., & Ramoni, R. B. (2016). SMART on FHIR: A standards-based, interoperable apps platform for electronic health records. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association , 23 (5), 899-908.
Sittig, D. F., & Singh, H. (2015). A new socio-technical model for studying health information technology in complex adaptive healthcare systems. In Cognitive Informatics for Biomedicine (pp. 59-80). Springer, Cham.
Wise, P. B., & FHIMSS, C. (2016). Value of health IT: HIMSS health information technology value model. Medical Informatics: An Executive Primer , 1.
