Recently there have been numerous articles written about how advances in IT have been helping in the medical field. Two articles entitled "PatientKeeper Demos Medical System Interoperability" and "IBM To Acquire Initiate Systems", both recently published in Information Week, discuss how IT is helping to form connections between different medical establishments.
In "IBM To Acquire Initiate System" the article focuses around how IBM is going to attain Initiate System, a small but important vendor of master data management software (MDM). The importance of MDM software is that it "helps organizations ensure data consistency across dimensions such as customers, products, locations, and employees" (1). This type of technology is extremely important in the healthcare industry, where the quick exchange of information and patient profiles is crucial. Speaking about the aquisition, IBM's general manager of Informational Management, Arvind Krishna, emphasized the important role Initiate System's MDM software has been able to have in the healthcare industry. Krishna claimed "In the U.S. alone, there's $36 billion in government stimulus funds [available] to faciliate the adoption of electronic health records and health information networks, both being places where Initiate's solutions play strongly" (2). This technology helps with the ease and efficiency in which important medical information can be transferred.
Similarly, in the article "PatientKeeper Demos Medical System Interoperability" the author, Antone Gonsalves, discusses the progress that has been made to form a connected medical network. the article declares that there is an "ultimate goal of a unified view of patient health information that would span hospitals, clinics, and doctors' offices" (3). IT usage in the medical field has the potential to be very beneficial and can help with "healthcare standards for audit trail and node authentication, consistent time, patient demographic query, cross-enterprise document sharing, and content consumer" (4). The technology for this interoperability has been developing well. However, according to the article the healthcare industry has been slow in picking it up. Luckily, the government realizes how beneficial this technology could be and "approved more than $20 billion in health IT stimulus programs" (5).
After reading these articles I think it is very important for the healthcare industry to continue to put effort into new IT innovations. The ability to create a database of all the different medical information would be extremely beneficial for everyone involved. This collection of data would give patients the ability to have medical professionals access their information no matter what hospital, clinic, or office they were at. Additionally, it would be a great tool for doctors to use to get up to date information about not only their patients but also different procedures and medical results. I believe that it is extremely important for the industry to continue to put money and time towards creating these database systems. Also, I think it is a good thing that the government has realized the importance of these systems and is willing to contribute funds for their development. The creation of these databases should help to improve the healthcare industry's operations and effectiveness.
References
(1) Doug Henschen, "IBM To Aquire Initiate System," Information Week, February 4, 2010, http://www.informationweek.com/news/healthcare/interoperability/showArticle.html?articleID=222601119 (accessed February 9, 2010)
(2) Doug Henschen, "IBM To Aquire Initiate System," Information Week, February 4, 2010, http://www.informationweek.com/news/healthcare/interoperability/showArticle.html?articleID=222601119 (accessed February 9, 2010)
(3) Antone Gonsalves, "PatientKeeper Demos Medical System Interoperability," Inofrmation Week, February 2, 2010, http://www.informationweek.com/news/healthcare/interoperability/showArticle.html?articleID=222600875 (accessed February 9, 2010)
(4) Antone Gonsalves, "PatientKeeper Demos Medical System Interoperability," Information Week, February 2, 2010, http://www.informationweek.com/news/healthcare/interoperability/showArticle.html?articleID=222600875 (accessed February 9, 2010)
(5) Antone Gonsalves, "PatientKeeper Demos Medical System Interoperability," Information Week, February 2, 2010, http://www.informationweek.com/news/healthcare/interoperability/showArticle.html?articleID=222600875 (accessed February 9, 2010)
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MDM sounds like a very influential and efficient program. I do think that it is necessary to have software that creates one system that holds all of a company's information in one place. If information is scattered across several systems, it is very difficult to organize and to find when needed. Finding information efficiently is a huge necessity in the health care industry. If information is filed incorrectly or in a place where it can not be found, then the wrong medicine can be given to the wrong people.
ReplyDeleteI agree that this new IT system will be beneficial to both patients and various healthcare agencies. The fact that medical professionals will be able to access patient information from various locations is key to success, especially in this technological generation. I believe that the implementation of this MDM was inevitable anyways because of the need for technological advances our generation is faced with. The fact that the government is willing to provide the funds necessary to implement this database of patient information reinforces the fact that it is an absolutely crucial system that will allow for further advancements in the medical field.
ReplyDeleteThis article reminds me of a commercial that I recently saw on TV. It was a man going to the doctor and behind him were hundreds of other doctors that gave the doctor he was seeing information about the patient. The commercial was representing what MDM would do. The compilation of patient data would be extraordinarily useful for doctors around the world. Instead of a patient having to explain their medical history to a new doctor, it would be available in medical terms for the doctor to observe. I also think this will help the healthcare industry overall, not just doctors. I think that the implementation of MDM will create minimal prescription errors or an incorrect diagnosis too. Once again, the combining of information into one location will save time, be more efficient, and effectively benefits health care professionals and patients.
ReplyDeleteI agree that these MDM systems can be a crucial step in creating a better health care system. Right now if you go to one doctor and get an x-ray and then later another doctor is interested in the old x-ray, you have to track the x-ray down and physically bring it to the new doctor. With this system, this lag time could potentially be eliminated. This would increase both the speed of care given and the quality of care since doctors would be more likely to look at patient history. I feel it would take a long time to implement a system like this in a broad area, but if it was implemented in many small networks, they could eventually be joined together. Think how great it would be if every time you went to a new doctor you didn't have to fill out all the patient history forms, because the office was able to print it off these new networks!
ReplyDeleteThis article poses an interesting idea: database uniformity in the healthcare industry. The first thing that came to my mind when I read this article was: jackpot to whatever company earns a contract with this. However, it is not as easy as it sounds. Hospitals are largely private, for-profit institutions in the U.S. What if one hospital accepts the cost of installing a database, but another hospital cannot afford it. As for-profit institutions, hospitals are cost-conscious, and more so than they would be if they were government run. Yes, the government has injected 20 billion dollars into it, but I don't even know if that is enough. This would be a huge project, and would be a national project, and I would hope to see a private company implement it more than a government funded or run operation.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, uniformity could have great benefits. In short, seeing a patients specifics quickly could result in quicker diagnoses and quicker and more effective treatments. These treatments could be more effective because by knowing a patient's, for instance, blood type, a more specific treatment can be given to the patient. However, a possible downside to this is that if patient are treated faster by antibiotics, bacteria evolves more quickly. Instead of the slow race we have against bacteria, we both go faster against each other.