4 Trends That Will Likely Hover Around Health IT In 2018

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As mentioned in previous posts by Sudir Raju, the use of IT in the healthcare industry has never been more important. In fact, given the rapid pace at which the industry is unfolding what is likely about to happen, it is important to have a look at what is ahead in the present year: cloud adoption and IT security will continue to grow in importance as 2018 keeps its course. Aside from that, there are other several aspects which will be covered later on in this post.

The Importance of Data and Information

After having take a look at different opinions from today’s health care leading voices, it is particularly difficult to simply overlook how data is being gaining importance, and how different sources of information are now being utilized alongside new technologies and other analytical methodologies to boost the and increase the use of information technologies in health care in hopes to achieve what the experts call a “digital transformation”. They all seem to agree upon the fact that all agents should aim to propose a value-based healthcare, and that that is actually something that is in the works—suggesting that important steps towards this achievement have already been made. Basically, the ability to harness data and information in order to get and discover new insights about data itself will be key to determining future success in this new era.

As mentioned in a previous posts, aside from developing new ways to interact with today’s healthcare industry, it is also key to come up with ways of enabling different agents and institutions to integrate their databases so that they can interact properly without facing any possible setback. Combining data, and establishing a shared “data pool” will be paramount as more sources of information are developed. This is also vital for other reasons: on one hand, this will definitely suppose a major improvement for health outcomes; on the other hand, it will allow the industry itself to reduce the costs commonly associated to its operation in this scenario. However, this also poses new challenges: general and overall acceptability of information across facilities and other clinics; the interaction between traditional and non-traditional information sources will determine the degree to which it can be standardized for all agents involved. 

Artificial Intelligence and Its Interaction With Health IT

According to experts there seems to be a correlation between big data and information pools and the ongoing development and further application of artificial intelligence to health IT. However, although both things are unquestionably going to play a major role in the upcoming years, the simultaneous use of AI and other technologies is raising some questions, as AI itself is likely to end up removing jobs; however, it is undeniable that the use of AI within the whole healthcare industry can carry out the vast majority of robotic processes and different automation activities which can result in more productive results and outcomes. Be that as it may, it is not that easy to put both things together and make them work in perfect harmony.

Why Blockchain Is Going To Play A Major Role

While the healthcare industry is paying special attention to the application and further use of artificial intelligence—for the tech sector really needs to start sorting out the massive amounts of information and data coming from clinical and non-clinical sources—, there is an undeniable need for more advanced technology to protect such data, especially nowadays where it seems to be several arguments in favor of implementing blockchain while the democratization of information takes place. 

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The Digital Transformation

As mentioned above, today’s state of the art of the health IT is rather diverse and motley. There are several premises which are used to define what will become of the healthcare industry once it adopts IT to a much larger extent. When it comes to digital transformation, we are talking about the possibility for the healthcare industry yo make and put consumers at the very center of the interaction, diversify competition and, ultimately, increase interaction rates. Of course, the underlying issue will always be improving the healthcare quality. Nonetheless, although all these things seem to have been already defined, the adoption and implementation rates are still far from being acceptable; and although there has been an ongoing development of apps, technologies and health-related devices using top technology, and even though these developments are capable of reaching out to more individuals at a much faster pace, the question about joint operability still remains open since it seems to be much harder than initially thought to provide the needed comprehensive real-time experience the industry expects to attain. Thus, is not hard to see why venture capitalists are paying special attention to consumer-oriented initiatives, for it is undeniable that the industry will also become highly profitable amidst its development.

How Informatics Has Changed Healthcare In The Last Few Years

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The world is the midst of what can only be called a digital economy based on the exchange of products, services and information through digital means. We aren’t only talking about the way information technologies have become a part of everything we do nowadays, but also how the management of such information and how it is allowing us to work faster and in smarter ways. It started to be this way back in the 1990’s, when we truly saw a difference and realized that information technology was to be taken seriously since it could potentially change the way we do business. In the United States alone we saw a change brought forth by the possibility of faster computer processing, The Internet being the prime vehicle for e-commerce and how mobile devices became more powerful by the day, has made it so that productivity more than doubled in a decade and information technology is to be credited for it. 

With all that being said, we cannot ignore the fact that initially, the healthcare sector was left behind in this revolution of the industry. There were many reasons for that, and some of this information has been covered here in Sudir Raju’s Blog before, but we can say that it has a lot to do with the fact that much of the activity that goes on with healthcare revolves around charting and management of paperwork. Children today are having medical records that do not rely on paperwork at all, but the majority of the population today comes from a generation not too far back that still relied on physical paperwork that stored important health information. This becomes more apparent with individuals who have traveled a lot, and in this era of globalization, it happens more often than not, that immunization records and medical information is still making the transition between paper and digital.

The incorporation of information technology in the healthcare sector has in the most part done away with the lost of records, the inability of holding all the information that is needed as the number of patients grow and last but not least, the ineffective manner in which medical information had to me processed and analyzed before we had the technology to truly index and cross-reference information across platforms and using the latest advances offered by IT.

One of the most important aspects influenced by the advent of the incorporation of information technologies in the area of healthcare comes in the form of dramatic savings passed down as a consequence of more efficient practices. Healthcare is not only expensive in the United States; it is also very wasteful when it comes to having inefficient procedures. It is estimated that 50% of medical expenses are derived from procedures that have to be done all over again due to errors associated with traditional methods of delivering and sharing information. Something as simple as having lab results with faster turnaround times can make a difference when it comes to freeing up time to do what truly matters most in healthcare, the well-being of patients.

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The science of medicine is not a finished process, and that is probably the reason why it is called a practice. Healthcare providers are constantly learning and putting in place new methods and procedures that help them hone their craft and offer more to their patients. Health informatics offers a unique way to share and tap into common knowledge about patients, new treatments, diseases, medicines, therapies and many other tools that are invaluable for the everyday work of physicians and other healthcare professionals. Information technologies are making it easier than ever for those in the industries to be connected and make the practice more efficient while at the same time offering a better chain of care to people.

The involvement of patients into their own care has always been instrumental for empowering them to take care of their health and at the same time be more in sync in the work physicians do so they can work as a team. People who have access to their own health history and are able to use the internet to get educated about treatment, support communities and better diagnosis will only become better patients. The ability to interact with health administrators, nurses and doctors faster can help patients feel like they are important and better value their healthcare team. Being able to form stronger bonds is something that health informatics is accomplishing by leaps and bounds every day.

Some people believe there may be some negative sides to this. They feel that so much involvement from the side of technology can create a big rift in the doctor-patient relationship by making it more impersonal. However, that may not be the case, as the technology is used as a tool to create better opportunities, not a replacement for a bond that simply cannot be broken when ethics are the foundation of such relationships.

Why The Use Of Health IT Has Become Paramount

In light of today’s fast-paced technological developments, developing areas and, in reality, all sorts of fields can benefit from the ongoing use of Information Technology, commonly referred to as IT. Under the scope of the healthcare industry, health IT is somewhat of a broad term that describes the traditional use of different technologies to both record and analyze health metrics. There are several technologies that embody the health IT spectrum: record systems, health devices and apps. All of them are responsible for providing physicians and researchers with accurate data so that they can provide patients with even more accurate diagnostics. For example, with the use of health IT, a nutritionist can tell a patient why they should follow a specific diet instead based on information provided by metrics, thusly minimizing the room for error and misinterpretations.

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As previously mentioned by Sudir Raju, the sole purpose of health information technology is to increase the degree at which doctors and physicians treat their patients properly, or, better said, to help them provide patients a much better healthcare—which also means making healthcare more balanced and equal for all individuals, as this information, the metrics physicians are able to collect through the use of the aforementioned different technologies, help healthcare ministries develop and implement policies in order to improve the healthcare system.

Thus, no wonder why institutions and researchers spare no efforts in bettering what they find and what they have found in terms of improvements. Health IT improves the rate at which the healthcare system delivers its services to patients. Besides, by paying special attention to new technologies, healthcare providers can minimize errors and increase patient safety, aside from obviously strengthening the interaction between providers and individuals. In fact, in poorer locations and areas where healthcare is rather a developing field, the implementation of these technologies is no less than mandatory. Otherwise, it would be impossible for locals to access affordable and reliable healthcare services.

By implementing health IT in medical facilities, clinics and hospitals can improve the quality of their services. In fact, this actually serves two different purposes: doctors and physicians can provide better services while accurately understanding more about what they already know about diseases, pathologies and other symptomatologies. When it comes to having a much broader picture about a patient’s medical history, information, especially accurate information, is key. Therefore, health IT is what ultimately allows physicians and doctors to better comprehend and interpret an individual’s medical history, thusly being able to provide them with better treatments and medications, which in the end allows the patient to receive a much greater probability of recovery depending on the case.

In short, health IT is paramount, especially under today’s conditions: climate change, overpopulation, natural disasters, etc., all these things combined require accurate treatments aside from a rapid response from healthcare service providers. The gap between rich and poor areas keeps growing over time, and medical services cannot be considered a luxury only a portion of individuals can afford, therefore, what the medical and scientific community aims to achieve is to reduce the fatal rates in those locations while making healthcare more accessible and accurate for all individuals. From that point on, it is quite easy to describe the perks of implementing health IT: whether it is empowering doctors to have accurate information at hand or prescribing the right medication, the scope of implementing health IT goes beyond any conception.

In fact, seeing the rate at which new diseases appear, health IT has become more than paramount: in order for physicians, doctors and scientists to develop new medications and treatments, they need to get a hold of accurate information. Without health IT, it would be impossible for them to assess new pathologies and diseases, and ultimately the whole healthcare system would fail at providing information about them. Thus, the benefits of the right metrics when it comes to assessing new diseases cannot be simply overlooked. Aspects such as healthcare records, better healthcare system, patient care, safety, less fatal rates, effectiveness, efficiency, and equity highly depend on the implementation of new healthcare information technologies. No wonder why the healthcare community works hand in hand to make the impossible possible within a very limited period of time. The race against diseases and healthcare inequality is a tough one.

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Last, but not least, health IT would be pointless were it not possible to integrate different sources of information. Given the importance of this field, the scientific community is also working on better ways to integrate different findings or to simply make clinical findings about diseases as well as patient records accessible: different physicians, different doctors, different clinics, whichever the case, they all need to be able to access specific information, especially if this information was collected by another person at a different place.

Why Health Informatics Is So Important To Healthcare

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The question we must clear up before we go any further is what probably most people who are beginning to read our articles here at Sudir Raju’s Blog is, what exactly is health informatics? What is the meaning of the concept and how it applies to improve our idea of healthcare by helping patients, doctors and the industry itself to become better everyday at doing what is meant to accomplish, making life for people more comfortable and of better quality.

Informatics in healthcare refers to a field that brings together many different disciplines by using health information technology to make healthcare better and more efficient, looking to lower the costs incurred and thus making it availability more common. The actual definition as given by the National Library of Medicine states that Health Informatics is "the interdisciplinary study of the design, development, adoption and application of IT-based innovations in healthcare services delivery, management and planning". In summary we can safely say that informatics studies resources and methods to best manage health information, and that includes Electronic Health Records or EHR, Electronic Medical Records or EMR, as well as health information exchange standards and medical terminology used, nomenclature, clinical terms and the use of devices with the intent of collecting health data in a portable fashion.

Professionals in the field can make a real different in the life patients and they can be there besides health care providers and administrators finding ways to set standards by which electronic should be managed, educating the parties involved on how electronic record issues could be handled, working as advocates for quality and standard compliance when it comes to the security and privacy of patients information, providing the best information to support decision making in clinical matters and last but not least, being involved in several different steps when it comes to auditing, quality assessment of information and risk management in all matters having to deal with clinical research and new developments in mobile health.

People often see healthcare as the actions and services provided and being performed by those who are at the forefront of the medical field. People like nurses, doctors, technicians and physician’s assistants are not the only ones who greatly impact patient care. Support personnel play an important role shaping healthcare and with the essential nature that information technology has gained, it is now more than ever that people with the set of skills that are needed to navigate this field, are needed. Accurate recording and interpretation of data is absolutely indispensable to help people in the field and even policy makers in healthcare to find problems in the system and find ways to correct them. Also, that information in invaluable when it comes to finding solutions to those problems and to locate the areas that can benefit most from their impact.

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One of the most important areas in which health informatics shows the need the industry has for professionals in this field, is in electronic patient records. It is a fact that people no longer receive their entire treatment from just one professional, instead they see more than one healthcare provider and this can be a nightmare when it comes to keeping track of paper records that work as evidence of their medical history. It is incredibly safe and convenient to use electronic health record systems to help keep information regarding their visits to different physicians, specialists, hospitals, healthcare facilities, laboratories and more. These records allow patients the peace of mind that comes from not having to summarize their entire medical history every time they visit a new doctor and they also help providers have access to the relevant information that patients may forget or simply dismiss as unimportant. All of these factors reduce paperwork, speed up the process, relieve stress and more importantly, ensure patients that the staff at the facility is already prepared and with all the necessary resources to give the best possible service during their treatment.

The reduction of costs across the board is another huge reason for more investment in health informatics. Medical errors are said to cost the United States close to $40 billion year and health informaticians are extremely effective helping the industry reduce such errors. On one side, they are great at creating solutions that reduce menial work that takes up labor hours that could be better using helping patients and reducing pressure placed on providers; likewise the practices of health informatics are also very effective at reducing the amount of lab work that needs to be done, thus reducing costs of taking samples and running analysis that don't need to me repeated each time. Health informatics reduce operating costs and also significantly reduce insurance premiums, something that passes down immediately as savings to patients and a better work environment of health professionals and others involved in the industry.