Healthcare Technology

Technology in health care is considered to be as one of the most important tools in a hospital. Indeed, technology plays a crucial role since it assists in the improvement of treatments given to patients. To add onto this, it has an indirect effect on the profits that health care institutions make. For example, electronic medical record (EMR) can cut down the time needed for the processing of care, especially when it comes to the retrieval of information. Previous studies have identified that health care facilities fail to take on new technologies for the provision of additional services. Such institutions become ineffective, and patients lose trustworthiness (Spil & Klein, 2015).

Relevance of Material

The application of technology in health care will serve as an illustration of some concepts. It will be an illustration of different ways technology can be used in the assessment of different factors that lead to the success of health care. There are various elements in the technological world that may be essential in the formulation of strategies in comparison to others. There is a need for a strong balance between health care, technology, and business strategy for optimal operation. The discussion will also serve as an illustration of the gap that exists between the strategy of growth by technology and diversification. EHR is one of the technological innovations by Microsoft that has been applicable in the medical field. It is tailored to meet the needs of any medical practice, a pediatrician’s office to a neurosurgeon’s office. The core of the application has already been built, and all a physician needs to do is import the data and integrate it with EHR.

Integration into Clinical Practice

By incorporating technology into health care, physicians can be able to obtain a flexible, secure, and customized system which suits their needs. It will also integrate the existing systems with more advanced ones in a fast and efficient manner. Fortune 500 companies and many large hospitals throughout the world currently use technology in health care (Phichitchaisopa & Naenna, 2013). The importance of technology in health care is that it enables to have a centralized information management system and security controls. This application is, however, very costly. That is why it has been used by large organizations that can afford to run it. It requires large capital and expertise which only large medical institutions can manage to pay for hence not applicable to small practices.

Some information systems have also been designed to keep patient records and any other related tasks in hospitals. The application of information systems has various benefits for the practice for the reason that it can be used by various departments, not just by a physician. It can be used for inventory, during interviews and job requisitions, managing finances, sales and marketing as well as project training. Information systems are affordable and, hence, widely used and are HIPAA compliant (Phichitchaisopa & Naenna, 2013). Users can also access interfaces virtually anywhere even with a mobile device, and they do not need to purchase anything. It is a great step towards the application being economical and efficient.

Operations of technology in health care can be customized to meet the needs of small medical practices and enable physicians to manage their patients, document tasks, and other office functions. Physicians can keep their records for as long as they need to, because the current technology has an archive application that periodically updates new information regarding patients. Other applications have the ability to enable physicians dealing with mentally ill patients to conduct assessments using the DSM-IV (Mostashari, 2014). Some systems can be integrated with other systems and components that are already in place, allowing a physician to have flexibility to determine what is useful or not.

Technology in health care has been proven to provide pertinent information regarding an individual’s health as well as the quality of service. With these systems, information on a person’s quality of health service can be spread through hospitals, laboratories, clinics, diagnostic centers, and provincial databases. Technology integrates all the relevant medical data and provides a physician with a complete view of an individual’s medical history.

Before the invention of technology in health care, it was not possible to offer a variety of patient services on one platform to assist clinicians in decision-making and determining what kind of care a patient needs. Physicians are now able to improve patient safety as technological health enables faster decision-making and accurate diagnosis (Mostashari, 2014). It has contributed to the improvement in areas of immunization, laboratory testing, determining medical history, and allergies. The current typical technological health environment has made it possible for physicians to make decisions that are more accurate than when there was primitive technology.

The major benefit of the application of technology in health systems is the possibility to improve the quality of medical services. The appropriate literature will facilitate the incorporation of technological advancements in health care to ensure patient services in health are accurate, fast, and competent. Tangible improvements have been recorded for those who use EHR systems (Mostashari, 2014). The major potential lies in being able to provide speedy, precise, quality and diverse services to the client. Using these services, patients can get the best medical care after their medical history has been reviewed. Adoption of these systems would enable provision of quick medical care in cases of emergency.

Coordination of medical care will also be enhanced by these systems of services; this will be important for patients who have serious medical conditions, like diabetes. The technological advancements made in health care will enable efficient sharing of information with the patient’s caregivers or family members to encourage participation in decision-making (Gan, 2015). Technological advancements in health care can also identify potentially dangerous medication interactions, verify prescriptions, and reduce the need for risky medical procedures.

How It Works

Information Use in Clinical Setting

The information regarding technological health care can be applied in the current clinical setting in order to offer solutions to some of the setbacks presently being experienced. To begin with, the introduction of new technological innovations will indirectly boost expertise of physicians. They will need to receive basic training on the operation of new equipment. Presently, physicians do not take ample time to familiarize themselves with services systems, train themselves and know how it is used even when other colleagues have learned how it works and its benefits (Mostashari, 2014). Physicians have acknowledged the fact that they are not being compensated for the extra effort. They need to learn how emerging innovations work, but time needs to be set aside for the training to ensure they have fully understood how the systems work and learn new features. Time is important in the adoption of this services systems as it enables the physician to understand how emerging innovations works; without investing time, no new information will be impacted.

The literature will provide insight into economizing operations through innovations. The cost of creating and maintaining emerging innovations is another barrier towards the adoption of services systems. Physicians have to compare the options of managing their own services systems and outsourcing others to provide the same services. The costs in consideration include purchasing price, monitoring costs, upgrade costs, negotiation costs, and upgrade costs. Small to medium medical practices that do not have a large budget for the procurement department need to consider finances as the major barrier towards emerging innovations adoption (Mostashari, 2014). The uncertainty of financial returns and implications resulting from the adoption of these services systems pose a challenge that many practices are not ready to overlook. The cost factor is important in any practice that considers adopting emerging innovations, because finances have to be allocated to maintain the systems.

Emerging information on technological health care will lead to increased demand for skilled labor. The absence of relevant skills to operate the services systems is a hindrance towards the adoption of technological advancements in health care. The skills needed to identify relevant medical services, listen to patients, contemplate on appropriate medical interventions and type notes, at the same time, require a high level of concentration, familiarity with the software and interface as well as typing skills (Phichitchaisopa & Naenna, 2013). All these characteristics are not normally found in most computer users. Over the decades, physicians have used files and other types of manual record keeping, and making a transition from that to electronic systems is a huge challenge. Some physicians lack good typing skills to record the relevant medical services, important notes, and prescriptions.

Collected works suggest the need for a physician to be informed on time management and computer literacy. In addition to the lack of computer skills, the adoption of technological advancements in health care has been faced with a challenge due to its complexity. It has several screens and options to navigate in, and this is a challenge for documenting patients’ progress services (Spil & Klein, 2015). It causes physicians to spend more time learning how to effectively make use of the systems. The objective of achieving quality results and improvement from technological advancements in health care is lowered as physicians have to deal with the pressure of balancing time between other activities and learning how it works.

The review of information will be used as justification for new additional space. Another barrier towards the adoption of technological advancements in health care is the lack of adequate and conducive spaces at workplaces. There are cluttered rooms, not enough space to put up new equipment when using the service systems, lack of privacy when using computers, some workstations are not set to accommodate physicians of a certain physique, and they are not permanently stationed at the computer stations to record services in real time (Spil & Klein, 2015). When practices are set up, most physicians do not allocate specific rooms or stations for computer use because they are using the manual forms of record keeping.

The research will shed light on the mitigation of costs. To navigate the cost barrier, physicians need to allocate more money in their budgets to cover the initial costs of installing Technological advancements in health care and maintaining them. Through various platforms, they can apply for extra funding from the government or relevant bodies so as to increase budgetary allocations. Software vendors have to educate physicians on how the services systems works; this will improve their computer skills and enhance the effectiveness of the systems (Spil & Klein, 2015). Physicians should take the initiative of investing in time to learn how to operate this system. At the workplaces, more space should be allocated to the IT department to ensure it is conducive for the operation of technological advancements in health care.

Conclusion

Despite the presence of technological advancements in health care, physicians are still choosing the traditional methods of serving patients over electronic methods. Making a transition from analog to digital is something that most physicians are struggling with. Using technological advancements in health care has varied benefits in a practice, and physicians should be encouraged and motivated to adopt the information systems and increase efficiency in their workplaces.

The adoption of technological advancements in health care does not solve the problem of determining the value of a particular medical system. There have been cases where vendors sell applications that quickly become obsolete causing financial loss to the practice and disrupting workflow at the workplace. Physicians are left with financial implications and the challenge of adopting new technological advancements in health care. The uncertainty of the future of technological advancements in health care is an issue that the presence of the systems has not solved.

There has always been a challenge of ensuring patients information is kept private; this was a problem even before the innovation of technological advancements in health care. The use of these technological systems has not managed to solve this problem because information regarding patients can be accessed across various platforms. Sharing of information amongst authorized health personnel can lead to infringement of the right to privacy, but at the same time, this is beneficial for the well-being of the patient. An individual with malicious intentions who possess hacking skills can access patient information.